A Safe Place
by ALittleTrifle
Summary: Months after the P-1 Climax the Amagi Inn welcomes a red-haired guest with a love for playing with sharp swords, making bad puns, and tormenting the manager's daughter.
1. A Deal with the Devil

Chapter 1: A Deal with the Devil

She stared at the paper apprehensively, as if she had expected it to suddenly catch aflame as she held it in her hands. She almost asked Kasai-san if there was some mistake, if the letter had been intended for someone else, but it was no use. The inn worker was tending to a large party that had suddenly shown up 20 minutes after their check-in time, so she couldn't spare a moment to answer any questions. Even if she did have time, Yukiko knew that asking the woman any more questions would be useless. After all, the name clearly written across the paper was her own.

In her years of living and working at the inn, Yukiko could recall most of the oddest requests her family and the workers had fulfilled for some rather eccentric customers. One guest in her forties had decked herself in gaudy fur coats and pearls and insisted that the staff address her as "Your Majesty" every time they were in her presence. Another guest was convinced that the inn was a front for some top secret government agency, so he had turned over the tatami mats in his room to find proof that it was bugged. One winter, they had a guest who believed that his ex-wife was determined to poison him through any means necessary, and one poor inn worker had to taste his food before he himself would take a bite.

Quirky as they were, none of those guests had ever referred to her by her name, let alone written a letter addressed directly to her.

"Maybe it's a joke," she told herself, "It might be someone from school." Her fingers still hesitated to open the letter, so she persisted, "I bet it's from Teddie." The image of the bear's blue fur and goofy smile lightened her heart a little. "Yes, I'm sure of it. He probably dragged poor Yosuke-kun and convinced him to rent a room here because he was bored."

On the other hand, if Teddie had written it the letter might have been addressed to "Yuki-chan", instead of the formal "Amagi Yukiko", with hearts and smiley faces adorning the corners, but she ignored the slight discrepancy. If Yosuke was with Teddie, he may have convinced the bear to address the letter in a respectful manner that wouldn't start rumors amongst any of the inn's staff. After all, only a few relatives and some of the older workers called her "Yuki-chan". What would her parents say if they suspected their daughter had a boyfriend, and if said boyfriend was actually bold enough to request Yukiko (by a nickname, too!) as he stayed at the inn?

She chided herself for being so nervous over nothing, and she opened the letter. In an instant, a lump formed in her throat once she read over the hastily scrawled words.

_On second floor at end of hallway. Bring food._

_P.S. When you were in the TV, you lived in a castle._

Any attempt to reassure herself failed miserably when she read the last sentence. The writer was undoubtedly not Teddie or Yosuke or even Kanji; none of them would give her such a cryptic letter. There was no hint of humor or warmth in the black ink that stared back at her from the paper.

Calling Chie was the first thing to come to her mind, but that wasn't possible. As much as she trusted her best friend, Chie was out of town visiting a sick family member. The aspiring martial artist had almost supernatural levels of physical strength, but she didn't possess the ability to fly. Yukiko then considered calling Yosuke or one of the others, but what good would it do her? Other than sounding a tad mysterious, the note didn't exactly threaten bodily harm. All she knew for sure was the writer had seen her Shadow in the TV world, so who did they leave? Just about everyone who had been watching the Midnight Channel had seen her other self, golden-eyed and dressed in a pink ballroom gown fit for a princess, declaring that she was going to find her "stud". Her cheeks burned at the memory, but she forced it aside as she mentally went down her list of suspects. She tried to recall any classmate who would go through with this, but none of them were staying at the inn to her knowledge.

After a short while her sense of curiosity overwhelmed the warning bells in her head; she resolved to face the visitor herself. Besides, what could this writer pull in a building almost completely packed with guests? If they meant to do her harm, they chose the worst possible time to try anything since it was the inn's busy season.

Before she headed to the kitchen, Yukiko made a beeline to her room. She crouched near the low desk positioned in front of the window and pulled one of the drawers open. Under the faint moonlight that shone through the glass pane, the dark blue steel of a folded metallic fan gleamed against the wooden base of the drawer. After the events of both the P-1 tournaments, the latter of which had enshrouded the town in blood red fog and hostile Shadows, Yukiko had purchased the fan from the local blacksmith's store. She felt that something with more weight to it than the usual paper fan she was accustomed to was a good cautionary measure. Keeping the fan folded, she slipped it in the front of her green obi and left with haste to the kitchen.

Surprisingly, she didn't pass anyone else on her way back upstairs after preparing the guest's food. The visitor had apparently requested one of the rooms in the most isolated part of the inn, which was usually reserved for guests who were willing to pay more for privacy and a better view of the outside scenery. Her list of suspects grew considerably shorter- very few Inaba residents, including her classmates, would spend such a large sum of money for a room at the local inn, no matter how great the amenities.

After reaching the room at the end of the second floor hallway, she lowered the tray on the floor beside her and knelt down in front of the door, placing her hands on the frame. "Please excuse me," she started in a cordial tone, as if she were welcoming any other guest. "I'm coming in."

The door slid open with one smooth motion. Yukiko bent her head towards the food as she reached for the tray beside her.

"Finally." A male voice commented without a hint of friendliness in it, which was oddly familiar.

When she turned toward her guest, her grip on the lacquer tray almost loosened immediately.

Sitting nonchalantly at the table in the center of the room, long legs crossed over one another and his head resting against the palm of his propped arm, was a pale young man with striking red hair. "I'm starving"

"YOU!" Was the only thing she could utter. If her kimono hadn't been so tight around her legs, the shock of seeing Sho Minazuki would have sent her falling back.

He only sneered at her, as if she were making a fool out of herself. "Yes. _Me. _Who exactly were you expecting?" His eyes, a vibrant shade of blue, peered at the tray laden with food in her hands. "Stop being so slow, Princess. It's gonna get cold."

Despite the absurdity of the situation, Yukiko willed herself to walk with the tray in hands, relying on years of hospitality training to get her across the floor to where he was sitting. Without looking at him, she carefully set the tray in front of him, feeling the weight of his eyes on her every move. The broth in the round soup bowl had barely settled by the time she walked quickly back to the door and slid it shut. Her hand went to the front of the obi where she had stashed the fan, but before she could take it out, the young man spoke again.

"I wouldn't do that." He said matter-of-factly over the soft click of the chopsticks he was using. "Besides, I'm a guest. It would be very..._inn-_considerate of you to attack me!"

He laughed at his own joke as her eyebrow twitched at the terrible pun, but she tried to recover herself and turned around to face him once more, her hand still settled across the obi around her waist. She had expected him to have a weapon at the ready, but she didn't see the twin katana that he favored during the P-1 Climax anywhere. Instead, he was simply drinking the soup from the bowl she brought as part of his dinner. While he ate, it took all of her wits to process that Sho Minazuki, the one who had manipulated her friends into a fighting tournament (twice!) and also used them as pawns of an elaborate plan to destroy the world, was eating dinner at her family's inn without so much as a knife nearby. He just...sat there, eating his dinner, like being under the roof of one of his supposed enemies was as insignificant as riding the train into the city.

After finishing the soup, he set the bowl down on the tray and was about to start on the rest of the meal when she finally blurted out, "Why are you here?!"

Looking at her like she had just asked the most stupid question in a classroom, he replied, "Eating."

"That's _not _what I meant!" She pointed an accusing finger at him. Her other hand was still on her obi, her fingers clutching the sleek outline of the fan she hid there. "You shouldn't be here!"

"Says who?" He responded, taking a big bite of the grilled fish. "The puppet? Or your high-and-mighty leader?"

It didn't take her long to know who he meant, but she continued, not knowing if she felt more confused or annoyed by the boy's casual attitude. "Why are you back in Inaba?"

He had finished the fish course and was now picking a bone out of his teeth, setting it back on the plate. "Man, you're annoying."

Her head was almost aching at this point. "People are after you, don't you know that-"

An exasperated groan interrupted her, accompanied with an irritated glare. "Just shut the hell up! If I knew this was going to be an interrogation, I wouldn't have bothered coming back to this shithole of a town."

Yukiko looked away from him, shuffling through her jumbled thoughts, trying to remember coming across a "Sho Minazuki" in the inn's records. _No, I would've recognized the name if I saw it at all. There's no way I would've missed it._

"You look really stupid right now, you know that, Princess?" His menacing words pulled her from her thoughts in an instant, and her eyes locked with his.

She straightened her shoulders in an attempt to keep her composure. "I have a name, and you know it. You wrote it on this." She produced the letter from her sash as proof. He replied with a smirk and nothing else, so she pressed on. "What do you want from me?"

Sho rolled his eyes in response. "This really IS an interrogation. Isn't it bad manners for a host to ask so many questions?"

"How can I _not_ have any questions?" She shot back, wanting nothing more than to arm herself with her fan. "You disappear for months after trying to destroy this town, and you show up at my _family's inn_."

"And now I'm regretting it, having to put up with your crap."

His attitude did nothing to help. "Stop playing around and answer my questions!"

"Then why don't you make it worth my while?" He retorted, a wide smile tugging the corners of his mouth. "Why _should _I answer all your dumbass questions? Why not give me some incentive?"

Taken aback by the rebuttal, she was silent. Rudeness aside, he had a point-why should he answer any of the questions she had posed him? During his last visit, he wasn't very forthcoming with his motives for luring them into the tournament, and now was no different. Everything she had learned about Sho Minazuki was from secondhand information she received from Yu, Labrys, and Mitsuru-san, the head of the Kirijo Group, and nothing she heard from them answered the one question that she kept circling back to.

_Why, of all places, did he choose to stay here?_

Sho had disappeared so abruptly in the aftermath of the tournament, leaving no trace of his presence. They all assumed that he wouldn't step another foot into Inaba again, and yet here he was in front of her. Yukiko recalled Mitsuru-san briefly voicing her concerns that the national Public Safety Department would want to interrogate her in an indirect attempt to get their hands on either Labrys or Sho, so it only made sense to her that the boy wouldn't return to her hometown. In fact, it would have been the last place she would have ever expected to find him again...

Her thoughts trailed off upon the realization, and then things were clearer.

"You're running from something."

As quickly as it appeared, the smirk left his face when he heard her question. "What did you say?"

She tried to ignore the increased hostility of his words as she approached the table once more and sat across from him, like she was preparing to make small talk. For the majority of the evening, he had thrown her off-why couldn't she put _him _on the defense?

"For every one of my questions that you answer, I'll answer one of yours." She presented the offer with the sense of professionalism that her mother used whenever she was cutting a bargain with vendors. After that Yukiko didn't elaborate any further, hoping that saying less would pique her guest's interest.

Fortunately, it worked. The boy was quiet only for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. "Whatever. You got a deal, Princess."

"That's not my name. Now, I'll start-why are you here?"

"Well, _Princess_," he added the emphasis to the nickname that she had already begun to hate from the few minutes of talking to him, "You're not entirely wrong, so good for you! I _am_ on the run. After all the fun I started last time in these boonies, this stuffy hoity-toity inn would be the last place anyone would expect to find me."

She didn't appreciate how he described her family's inn, but she said nothing on the matter. "Fine. Your turn."

Upon realizing that she would be keeping true to their bargain, the boy didn't waste any time. "Where's your Leader? In fact, where's Scraps and Kirijo with all her cronies?"

Her temper flared slightly at the disrespectful way he had addressed her comrades, but she kept it in check. "They aren't here. Mitsuru-san and her people left as soon as everything went back to normal. Yu-kun left shortly after them."

"So, he left, huh?" Sho paused, eyeing something across the room. When she followed his line of sight, she spotted two sheaths jutting from a roll of cloth near his futon. She didn't have to ask to know what they were, or what he intended to do with them.

Her eyes left the bundle and she kept the conversation going."Why did you ask me to come see you, especially if you wanted to keep your head down?"

"Isn't it obvious? It's because you recognize me." His tone suggested that she was an idiot for even bothering to ask him that. "I didn't need one of your maids to gawk at me or try to figure out where I'm from. You barely registered on my radar the last time I was here, but even _you _know who I am. It would've been a pain in the ass to make stuff up for anyone else."

The practicality of his methods so far was almost surreal. From what she remembered about the the P-1 Climax, Sho didn't seem like the type of person to meticulously consider these kind of details. And he wasn't wrong about their lack of chance encounters during the tournament, either. Yukiko wasn't on the top of the tower that rose from Yasogami High that night. She had ran into Kanji and Rise, who was channeling everything that was happening to them from Yu-kun and the others. Had her heart not been beating a hundred miles per second, she may have been able to appreciate the irony of meeting one of the masterminds behind the P-1 tournaments, especially after never being formally introduced to him beforehand.

"So, you gonna call them?"

Her head snapped up, like someone had poured a bucket of ice cold water on her head. There was something predatory about his eyes this time, like he was preparing for an ambush on unsuspecting prey. "Them?"

"Yeah, _them_-Kirijo, your annoying friends, or whatever. You gonna tell them that I'm here?"

A twinge of dread pulled at her heart. She looked down at her hands, which were now folded across her lap, a habit she had developed from all the years of manager training. "I thought about calling my friends when I read your letter."

When she looked back up, she could tell that her admission had pleased him. "Aw, my letter _scared _you?"

"No, but it did put me on edge," she replied honestly. "I was trying to guess who would write something like that to me, and who would actually give it to me here, in my home."

His mocking grin widened. "And now that you know, you still going to call your friends?"

She was silent for a moment, her fingers slightly trembling on her lap, but she refused to look away this time. "I haven't decided yet."

His grin slackened a bit, and the predatory look to his eyes intensified. "I don't think you should. Things could get messy for them...maybe even for you." After the last sentence, a flash of white light caught her eye, and she saw the serrated edge of a combat knife under the soft glow of the ceiling lamp. Apparently, she was wrong about him not having a weapon nearby. He tossed the knife with a flick of his wrist, and with morbid curiosity, she watched the blade tumble in the air before he caught it effortlessly. "As much fun as it would be, I didn't come here to start anything with you morons. As long as you give me what I want, there won't be any trouble."

Seeing as it was technically her turn again, Yukiko spoke, already regretting her next question. "Well, what do you want, then?"

In a second, he straightened his arm out towards her and the point of the blade was inches away from her chin. The lightning-quick motion and the glint of the weapon caused her to flinch slightly, but her back remained straightened.

"For as long as I'm shacked up here, you're my personal servant." He declared in a tone similar to an emperor giving orders to his underlings. "You bring all my meals here, and anything I want or need, you get it for me. If anyone else tries to come in here, they'll get a knife to the face."

As much as she disliked being called a "servant", the insult wasn't far from what other patrons had expected of her in the past. "And your other demands?"

He continued, clearing enjoying himself. "You tell no one I'm here. You got that? No one-not any of your idiot friends, not your leader, not Scraps, not Kirijo and her lackeys, _NO ONE_. You try so much as send a text to anybody telling them that I'm staying at this crappy inn, you'll be sorry."

With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the knife once more. The urge to wield her fan grew stronger each time the blade glinted in the light. "Anything else?"

"That's it!" He cheerfully remarked, his hand snatching the handle of the knife from the air.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her heartbeat drumming in her ears, cancelling all other noise. This couldn't be a person sitting across from her; it was a demon borrowing the skin of a human boy who she half-expected to present a contract that demanded a signature written in her blood. Nothing about this felt right, but Sho Minazuki had left her with few options. When she opened her eyes again, she saw him looking at her, expecting an answer.

"If I agree, do you promise?"

"Promise what?" he snapped impatiently, leaning back on the tatami mat, his hand throwing the knife upward again. For someone who was supposedly around her age, he had the attention span of a five-year-old.

"If I agree to be your...I mean, if I do everything you say, do you promise not to hurt my family and friends?"

The question must have been absurd to him because now he stopped playing with the knife and was sitting up on his elbows. After a short moment of tension, a full-bodied laugh erupted from his lips. The ceiling lamp cast a shadow on his pale face, making him look more like the demon she imagined in her mind. "You're shitting me, right? Here I am, with a knife in my hand and you sitting across from me, and you're worried about _your family and friends_?"

More annoyed than afraid by his belittling, she felt her patience and courage running thin. "Do you promise?"

He silently regarded her with those strange, wild eyes again. As nervous as she felt, she refused to squirm under his gaze and instead looked resolutely back at him. Seconds passed by like hours as she waited for him to laugh at her again before admitting that he never intended to make any kind of deal with her, but it never happened. With a dismissive scoff, he finally spoke. "All right, Princess. You do everything I say, and nothing will happen to your precious friends."

That was as good of a promise as she was like to get. Saying nothing else, she nodded and reached for the tray. Though it was lighter now with the empty dishes, it still felt like a boulder in her hands as she silently struggled to get back onto her feet. The sudden motion almost made her dizzy, but she turned on her heel towards the door before he could catch it.

Thankfully there was no more to be said between them, and she closed the screen door behind her without so much as casting one last look at her guest. It wasn't until she returned the tray to the kitchen and then to her room that she allowed herself to feel the entire gravity of the situation. She shut the door and went to her futon, where she immediately threw herself on the mattress. She breathed in the fresh cotton scent of her pillow, not caring that she was still dressed in her kimono. Her conversation with Sho had taken its toll on her, and it took every ounce of willpower to not crumble to pieces when she was in his room.

"How is this happening?" She asked, the pillow muffling her words. She stayed like that for a while, wanting to forget the ice cold sensation that the boy's eyes gave her, waiting for her blood to start flowing warm again. After a moment, she turned her head and looked to a nearby dresser. On it was a frame where her friends beamed at her from a photograph. She reached for it and took it into her hands. Her friends continued to smile at her under a blue sky as she shifted her back onto the mattress, holding the picture above her head.

"I had to. I've heard enough about him to know he's unpredictable." She reassured herself, or maybe it was for them. Her eyes roamed over her friends until they settled on the tall, grey-haired youth that stood behind her when the photo was taken. Even now when he was so far away, his kind smile comforted her. "You would've done the same thing, right, Yu-kun?"

She stayed like that for a while before the stress of the evening sapped her of what remaining strength she had. Her hands gently clutched the picture as she slept.

* * *

><p>Despite a full schedule with attending school and fulfilling her duties at the inn, Yukiko kept her end of the bargain. Every morning for the next three days, she dropped off Sho's breakfast by placing the tray in front of his room and rapping gently on the door before rushing off to class. Luckily for her, Yosuke and Kanji were too distracted with other matters to ask her why she was running to the inn as soon as school let out. And although she missed her, Chie being out of town was a blessing in disguise. She would've been able to tell something was wrong, and Yukiko would have a difficult time convincing her otherwise.<p>

As soon as she got home in the evening and changed into her kimono, she made the rounds at the inn to ensure everything was running smoothly. At precisely 7 o'clock, Yukiko personally delivered dinner to his room, where he would be sitting at the table. Going against how she thought he would act during his stay, Sho always looked like he was deep in thought when she entered the room, and he barely acknowledged her presence until after she set his dinner in front of him. Aside from the occasional biting remark, he was surprisingly quiet for the rest of the evening. She expected him to take any opportunity he could to dangle the well-being of her family and friends over her head to pressure her into keeping their deal, or arguably just as bad, she expected a barrage of his terrible puns.

But nothing really happened. He ate his meal, she sat there waiting until he was finished so she could take the tray, she left with a curt good-bye, and the cycle would repeat. Given the inn's history of problematic customers, Sho was actually a polite guest on most counts. His room was neat and intact, and he didn't make any loud noises to disturb the other guests. Even though she didn't know him very well, she assumed this behavior was part of whatever plan he had concocted. As hotheaded as he was, even Sho probably knew that any kind of disturbance would bring unwanted attention to himself. The staff had never seen him before, so he was already the subject of some light gossip in the kitchen.

Yukiko later found that Sho had registered under a fake name. She came across the name "Souji Seta" while examining the check-in book at the front desk on the first night he arrived. Knowing what he was capable of when he hacked into the Kirijo Group's secured data servers, assuming another person's identity was probably child's play for him.

But the sudden appearance of his name in the book wasn't what alarmed the staff-it was the fact that they never actually _saw_ their new guest. No one could recall ever seeing him at the front desk; his name just happened to be there at the designated arrival time that was supposedly confirmed over the phone. The other detail that the staff found troubling was that he requested to be undisturbed most of the day, even if it meant skipping lunch. On top of all that, the demand that they found oddest was that he specifically wanted the manager's daughter to personally deliver his meals every day and every night he spent at the inn.

The guilt of hiding the truth from people she considered her own family was heavy, but Yukiko did her best to deflect the staff's questions. "Souji Seta" was a university student who needed to take some time off from the day-to-day grind of the hectic city life and an overbearing family who kept pressuring him to ace his classes and secure a career. He was studying for his exams and taking time for personal reflection, hence his reasons for wanting to be lodged in the most private part of the inn. In addition to being very studious, Seta-san was a particular person of particular habits and needed everything done in a very particular manner, which is why he wanted only the same person-this being Yukiko-to deliver his meals so he could eat without having to make small conversation with different inn workers. When Kasai-san asked why it had to be Yukiko to bring the meals, she stated that their guest wanted to make sure that his requests would be answered promptly, and so the manager's daughter would be best-suited for completing this task.

Whether it was because they were satisfied with Yukiko's answers or because the Amagi Inn instilled the "respect the guest's privacy at all times" philosophy in their workers, the staff didn't ask too many other questions. Their enigmatic guest may have been a burnt-out university student, but he had to have come from a wealthy family. He paid for everything up front before officially checking in, and Yukiko didn't give them any reason to believe that he was a horrible guest.

So after three uneventful nights passed, Yukiko thought she had adapted to the strange state of affairs she found herself in. Or rather, that Sho Minazuki had _forced_ her to partake in. But then on the fourth night, she wasn't able to give his dinner to him.

Unlike the previous nights, she saw that the room was dark as she approached it. He usually had the light on, which was an easy way for her to tell that he was there. Not wanting to barge in, she knocked on the wooden frame of the screen door. "Seta-san?" It was the quietest part of the inn, but she was always careful to call him by his assumed name in case someone happened to pass by.

There was no answer from the other side of the room, so she knocked once more; maybe he had headphones on or he was sleeping? A few more minutes trickled by in silence, and he still gave no answer or any other sign that he was present. It was very tempting for her to believe that he really wasn't there, but had he left his room at any point of the day, she would have known about it. With his height, the bright red hair, the distinctive X-shaped scar that crossed over his forehead and down to his cheeks, the staff would have definitely spotted him. But when she came home from school, no one had mentioned a guest of Sho's description.

But if he hadn't left his room, why wasn't he there now?

She knocked on the door one last time, and again, there was nothing. Yukiko estimated that almost fifteen minutes had gone by. Unsure of where he was or if the persistent silence was his way of wanting to be alone, she left the tray of food at the door and left. Yukiko looked back once, but the food remained untouched at the foot of the door.

The next morning she got up a little earlier than usual and went to the kitchen to prepare Sho's breakfast. When she walked down to the end of the hallway, she saw the dinner still untouched next to his door.

_He hasn't eaten a thing_. The realization set off an alarm in her mind, and a sense of unease crept down her neck. She approached his door with trepidation, and years of balancing various things allowed her to easily shift the tray to one arm while her free hand rose to knock.

But just about as her hand was about to make contact with the frame, she suddenly heard footsteps from the other side and the screen door slid open to reveal the previously missing red-haired boy.

"Y-you're here," she stammered.

He didn't return the greeting, and his eyes darted from her to the tray on her arm. "Food."

"Oh, right." She shifted the tray so that both her hands were carrying it. "I guess you would be hungry-"

As soon as the tray was within reaching distance, he didn't bother to wait for her to step inside. He snatched the chopsticks up and began to wolf down the bowl of steamed rice. For a second she was unable to speak, but then quickly realized what was happening. Her hair whipped across her cheek as she turned her head to see if anyone was coming up from the hallway.

"Not here!" She thought she had heard someone, most likely a worker bringing up breakfast for another guest, coming up the stairs. Sho either didn't hear her or chose not to listen because his hands started moving towards the rolled omelet until Yukiko charged in with the rest of his breakfast. Not caring about decorum, especially in front of someone who had the gall to eat his meal _before_ it was set on the table, she slammed the door behind by sliding it shut with her foot.

"Are you crazy?!" She exclaimed, the panic apparent in her voice. Sho didn't make an effort to respond; instead, he was able to reach the rolled omelet this time and continued to stuff his face. Frustrated by his apathy and the lack of manners, she angrily stormed past him and nearly slammed the rest of his breakfast on the table.

"What's with you?" He finally asked between bites of egg and rice.

"I thought the whole point of hiding is to _stay hidden_!" She snapped at him. He regarded her with the same nonchalant look before sitting down and beginning on the broiled mackerel.

He shrugged. "I was hungry, and you were slow."

"Maybe if you hadn't skipped dinner last night, you wouldn't have to scarf down your meal and risk getting seen!" She paused, her memory jogged by her last statement. As Sho began sipping the bowl of miso soup, she took a deep breath to calm herself before asking, "Where were you last night?"

The bowl hid the features of his mouth, but she saw one raised eyebrow in response to the question.

"I came by with your dinner, but you didn't open your door. The food was still there this morning."

He set the bowl down and placed the chopsticks across the rim. Without looking at her, he simply answered, "It's none of your business."

The curt response stung a little, but she wasn't entire surprised by it. This was the boy who threatened her family and friends in exchange for her silence. It was unlikely that he would be willing to share his evening plans with her.

Knowing it was useless, she continued. "The food isn't any good when it's cold. It spoils and it's best to throw it out when it does."

"Then throw it out. Just leave me alone." He was looking at her now, an agitated expression on his pallid face. For whatever reason, his irritation seemed to be more out of exhaustion and she suddenly noticed the slight dark bags under his eyes and the slight slump of his shoulders.

She was about to speak again, but her eyes caught the hands of the clock that hung on the wall behind him. It was almost half past six, and she still had to collect her homework for school. Taking the empty tray, just as she had done the past three nights, she left, albeit reluctantly.

* * *

><p>It happened again when she returned later that evening. He wasn't there, or at least he wanted her to believe that he wasn't there, when she arrived with his dinner. And when she returned the next morning with freshly cooked food, he was inexplicably there to greet her with a scowl and a demand for his breakfast. Had she not rushed in again with the meal, he would have just eaten in the hallway again.<p>

Like yesterday morning, the conversation was as one-sided as always. "Is there another time that you want your dinner dropped off?" She proposed cautiously as he ate with more urgency than the last day. "I could come by later if it's better."

To her growing frustration, he said nothing. She waited, fuming silently, her head filled with all the things she wanted to say to break the lapse of silence, when a sudden movement broke her thoughts. At some point, he had finished his meal and was now standing up, towering over her. It was then that she realized how much taller he was than her, and to add to her discomfort, she noticed the hint of toned muscle beneath the green button-down shirt he wore. Before she could even react, he abruptly turned away from her toward his futon and flopped down face-first.

Startled by his atypical behavior, she rose from the tatami mat. "Are you okay?"

Without even lifting his head, he uttered only one word. "Leave."

Her eyes lingered on his motionless form for a moment before she took the tray from the table. Whether or not he was putting up an act, she couldn't bring herself to argue with him.

When she was at the door, she looked over at him for the last time that night. "You really shouldn't skip your meals.". As she expected, he said nothing and she left. After sliding the screen door shut, she remembered the uneaten dinner from last night and picked it up. The sound of her own padded footsteps accompanied her as she walked away.

_Really, it's like talking to a child._

* * *

><p>The rain fell in torrents, pattering relentlessly against the roof of the inn. It was 7 on the dot, and she was kneeling outside of Sho's room with the heavy dinner tray next to her as she had done all week.<p>

"Seta-san?" She called out. It was strange calling him that, but she couldn't afford to be careless. "Excuse me, but may I come in?"

As was the case the past two nights, he didn't seem to be there; only the rain answered her. She knocked gently on the door frame, repeating herself. "May I come in?"

Again, no answer. This would be the third time that he would go without dinner during his stay. She recalled him looking paler than usual the last time she had dropped his meal off, and this cold, rainy autumn night did nothing to make her less worried.

_He may get sick if he's really out in this weather, _she thought glumly, and Yukiko inexplicably felt guilty about this. Rude, antisocial, and temperamental as he was, Sho was a guest at her family's inn. Even if his "bargain" was colored with tones of extortion, she had been tasked with bringing his meals to him and was obviously doing a subpar job of it. Her guilt may have also stemmed from the indisputable fact that Sho was still human, even though he may have unnaturally strong. Knowing what she did about him from Yu-kun and Mitsuru-san, Yukiko doubted that there would be anyone who would care for him if he happened to fall ill.

A clap of thunder broke over her thoughts and made up her mind for her. Going against her better judgment, her hand gripped the side of the door. "Excuse me." She called out apologetically and slid the panel back.

Just as she expected, there was no one there. The raindrops streamed down the glass pane of the windows and the wind escalated to howls that wrapped around the building. She closed the door and made her way to the table in the center of the room. After placing the tray down on the surface, she stood up to observe her surroundings. His duffel bag remained in the corner where he always left it, and his futon laid on the floor unmade. A black laptop rested next to the pillow, its lid closed and its power cable running from the nearby outlet like a curved snake.

"Where could he be?" Her eyes roamed around the room, but it didn't give her any hints about the boy's whereabouts. Like it was trying to deliberately worsen her fears, another clap of thunder rang over the wind and rain.

"He can't be gone," she told herself, attempting to ignore the tightness forming in her chest. "His stuff is still here-"

It was then that a flash of lightning illuminated the room, and her shadow appeared on against the floor, stretching endlessly like some invisible entity was pulling it. But after the lightning faded, the room was now brighter with the soft glow of static. Not knowing what to make of this change, she looked over her shoulder to see the recently blank TV alive with rings of white and black. A crown of hair the color of red flame emerged from the TV, and then the rest of her missing guest followed. When he was on his feet, he didn't look pleased to find his hostess in the middle of his room.

"What the hell are you doing here?" For some reason, his eyes were a brighter shade of blue in contrast to the darkness around them and she suddenly noticed the outline of his trademark katana that he gripped in each hand.

Putting her uneasiness and bewilderment aside, she stood straight and folded her hands against the front of her kimono. "I came to bring you your dinner."

His mouth was set in an intimidating frown. "You could've just left it at the door. Hell, I even told you to let it rot if you wanted! I'm not paying you to snoop around my room."

"I'm not snooping." She insisted, feeling indignant at the accusation. "I'm sorry, but I let myself in because you've missed dinner the past two nights now."

"What's it to you?" He rounded on her, closing the distance between them in only a few strides of his long legs.

Yukiko tried not to notice how much sharper the katana looked up close."Our cook puts a lot of work into the food. You shouldn't waste it."

"Don't friggin' lecture me!" Another bolt of white light split the dark sky, highlighting the shape of his scar for an instant.

She wanted nothing more than to yell at him, but she did her best to keep what little calm remained to her. "When you didn't answer, I got worried and-"

His grimace twisted into a sneer, and his cruel laugh was accompanied with another rumble of thunder. "You got _worried_? Don't lie to me, Princess."

"I'm not lying-"

"Yeah, okay, _liar,_" he continued to talk over her, his hands clutching the handles of his katana like he was preparing to use them. "I bet you wanted to go through my stuff just so you had a reason to call your friends over and-"

"_That's not IT!_"

She wasn't sure who was more surprised by her outburst, but Yukiko couldn't keep her temper in check any longer. Even though he was glaring at her with more intensity than the thunderstorm outside, she lost herself to a week's worth of pent-up frustration. "I really was worried, all right? It's not healthy that you're missing your meals! I mean, look at yourself! _And stop calling me a liar!_"

His eyes continued to bore a hole through her, but the adrenaline coursing through her veins refused to let her look away. In response to her stubbornness, that terrible mouth of his curled into a spiteful grin. "But you are one, aren't you?" The question felt like he was laying another one of the traps for the mind games that he loved to play.

"I can hear you when you tell your little stories." He went on, taunting her. "I know everything you've told your staff so that they wouldn't go digging around. I have to say, I was actually impressed that you could pull it off."

The tightness in her chest from earlier worsened, and her fingers began to clench. "Stop it."

"Have you told all those same lies to your friends, too? You know, the ones that you're so eager to protect from me?" When she said nothing, the thunder didn't drown out his laugh. "Oh man, what would they say, huh? How would they feel? Knowing that their perfect little princess is actually _lying_ to them?"

She could feel herself shaking, and she desperately hoped that it was too dark for him to see. "That's enough."

"You pests are all the same, aren't you? Pretending to care about each other, but wouldn't think twice about lying to cover your asses! And after all your Leader said about bonds and all that cavity-inducing shit."

Her chest quickened at the mention of Yu-kun.

"I knew he was full of himself," he remarked contemptuously as his rant continued. "He was the biggest loser of you all, talking down to me from his damn high horse like he knew everything. And right here, I got proof that he's wrong! Hah, I wish he were here so I could shove it in his stupid face-"

"_SHUT THE HELL UP!_"

At this point her hands were fists against her sides, and her dark eyes glared defiantly up at him from under the fringe of her bangs.

The wind continued to howl outside, but she paid it no mind. She could tell that he didn't either since he was having far too much fun at the moment. "What's the matter, Princess? I hit a nerve?"

The fact that he was carrying two very sharp katana no longer concerned her; all she felt was an overwhelming desire to make him eat his words. "Say what you want about me, but I won't let you talk about Yu-kun like that! If you say another bad thing about him, I'll make you regret it!"

His white-toothed grin broadened in excitement, threatening to split his face open like the scar across his head. Seconds ago, he was satisfied with subjecting her to verbal insults. Now, it looked like he wanted nothing more than an actual fight. "That so? Why don't you prove it, then?" He challenged, pointing to the TV with the katana in his left hand. "After you."

There may have been a possibility that she would regret this later, but she walked towards the TV without missing a step. Not bothering to look back at the room or at him, her hand touched the screen and the portal opened at the touch of her fingers. She leaned in head-first, and she closed her eyes as she was pulled down into oblivion.

* * *

><p><strong>Writer's Note:<strong> Why did I write about a pairing that will never happen (like, never ever happen)? Mainly, it's because I like odd things (and I'm bored waiting for Persona Q and 5). After finishing the True Story of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, I thought about how Sho would try to adapt to a world that he tried really, really hard to destroy. Then I thought how funny it would be if he was a guest at the Amagi Inn. Then I thought it would be fun to see Sho and Yukiko play off one another! LOGIC.

So this is a weird little story, but I hope it ends up being an entertaining distraction at the very least. Thanks, and more to come!


	2. Swords, Fans, and Fire

Chapter Two: Swords, Fans, and Fire

"Y'know, there's still time for you to go back!"

His taunts were an incessant stream ringing through the fog and into her ears as they walked. Along with his insults, the deep sound of his footsteps followed her as she walked in front of him. At one point, she thought having her back unguarded to him might not have been the smartest thing to do since all she had was the metallic fan she carried in her obi. Sho, on the other hand, had two swords hanging from each side of him. The fan would have only been able to do so much if he caught her with a surprise attack.

But honestly, this whole evening was already marred with bad decisions on her part. What's the harm of one more?

"How you gonna fight in that get-up anyway?" The young man goaded, and Yukiko could visualize the mocking grin on his face all too clearly. "Come on, do yourself a favor and turn back."

Turning back was probably the best thing she could do tonight. The kimono she was wearing wasn't the most optimal of armor as it limited her movements, so dodging, jumping, and running were out of the question. The metallic fan was sturdier than the paper ones she fought with in the past, but close combat was out of the question against someone like Sho. And really, she still had an unfinished English assignment waiting for her back in her room...

"It's impossible for me to think less of you already, so quit while you're ahead."

...and she suddenly felt that the English assignment could wait. "Be quiet."

To her astonishment, he actually did that much for her because the only sounds for a while were his heavy footsteps trailing behind her. She walked slower than she liked out of cautiousness; even though most of the fog had cleared up since last year, she still couldn't see more than a few feet ahead of her. She regretted not having the glasses Teddie made for her long ago. Without them, she doubted that she would have been able to an approaching Shadow before it was too late.

_Where am I even going, anyway?_ She asked herself that question before, and thinking about it again only added to her anxiety. The only thing running through her head after entering the TV world was getting back at Sho for what he said about Yu-kun and her friends. When he landed after her, she just turned and walked away in a huff, her mind still set on giving the infuriating boy the fight he wanted so badly.

But as they continued to walk through the fog to wherever they were going, Yukiko's feet became heavier at each flaw her brilliant plan presented. Despite the growing sense of unease, she didn't want to turn back because she knew if she did, she would never hear the end of it from him. Sho didn't seem the type to forget about these things, after all.

And she really, _really_ wanted a good reason to throw her fan at his head.

"You're serious about this?" He called at her back, breaking the silence between them.

"Isn't it obvious?" She replied as she kept walking.

"...you're _really_ gonna fight me?" He asked again, disbelief tingeing his words.

This time she did turn her heard over her shoulder to face him. His expression was less jovial this time; instead, he looked more suspicious. "Yes. Unless you take back what you said about Yu-kun earlier."

The derisive laugh that followed her statement suggested that he wouldn't. "Like hell I will! Why should I take it back, especially if it's all true?"

"I guess we're fighting, then." She turned from him, only to see more yellow fog drifting in the distance.

"You don't even know where you're going, do you?"

Her back stiffened at his question, but she supposed this would be a good time as any to get directions from him. "Don't you have an arena set up like you did during the tournament? Do I have say, 'Bring on the ring!' or some kind of magic password?"

"I wasn't responsible for that stuff. Here's fine." He simply responded. When she turned around, Sho had already fallen into an offensive stance, one katana raised above his head and the other at level with his waist. "Last chance to turn back, Princess."

Though she had never fought him before now, Yukiko knew he was going to be a frightening opponent. Sho was most likely faster, stronger, and more experienced with battles than she was, which were all reasons why she wasn't going to give him a chance to get close to her.

In her mind's eye, Yukiko saw the image of what she wanted to summon. Seemingly out of thin air, a card materialized before her. One of its sides was emblazoned with the shadowed outline of a robed woman against a deep purple and rose background. The other side was decorated with a black and white masked face surrounded with a diamond pattern of different shades of blue. She opened her fan and extended it, and in a soft but clear voice, she spoke. "Persona." Her fan swiped through the card in one graceful arc, and there was a flash of light. When it faded, the almost ethereal outline of Konohana Sakuya appeared at her side. The sight of her Persona's pink wings, which resembled the cherry tree blossoms in spring, gave Yukiko a sense of comfort, especially considering who she was about to face.

"I'm not running away!" In contrast to her challenger, she raised her fan in a defensive stance and she cleared her mind of everything but the red-haired boy with the maniacal smile.

* * *

><p>He expected this to be short -five minutes, maybe ten minutes tops. The princess didn't look like she was capable of balancing more than a few dinner trays, so this should've been a quick, fun way to pass the time. The kimono she was wearing and that flimsy little fan of hers didn't look like they would've helped much in a fight either, so needless to say, he was feeling rather confident in the beginning.<p>

But well after ten minutes had passed, and the singed scent of burning fabric filled his nostrils after he barely dodged her Persona's fire attack for what must have been the fifth time, Sho couldn't deny the reality of things any longer.

He had underestimated Yukiko Amagi, and he was paying for it.

As soon as he rolled back onto his feet, her Persona-that pink, ridiculous monstrosity of hers-launched another pillar of flame at him. A string of expletives ran through his head as he swiftly leapt out of the way. The heat of the fire licked at the soles of his shoes, and when he turned back, he saw a dark spot that scorched the earth where he stood a second ago. From there a long trail of black ash led back to Amagi with her Persona hovering by her side.

_This would be a hell of a lot easier without that fairy fluttering around_. Since the beginning of the fight, every effort to get to Amagi was repelled by her Persona Each time he tried to rush her down, she summoned it just in time to block his attacks or to force him on the defensive with wave after wave of flame spells. Normally he would be having fun in any other circumstance. He loved the feeling of his blood running hot and the satisfaction he would get whenever he saw the fear in his victim's eyes.

But now, this was one of those rare fights when he didn't feel anything but frustration. All he had to show for his progress was a burnt shirt sleeve, a pair of soot-covered katana, and a head filled with all the things he wanted to yell at the Amagi girl.

_If he was with me, this wouldn't be a contest._

"What's wrong, Princess?" He shouted, trying to drown out the sound of the flames and his own self-doubt. "Can't fight by yourself?!"

She glared in response but didn't take the bait. The girl knew just as well as he did that she couldn't hold her own against him in close-range combat. "Summon your Persona, then!"

As much as he wanted to, he couldn't take her up on that particular challenge, but he hid that little detail with a bark of laughter. "I don't need one to take you down!"

"Then prove it!" Amagi's Persona charged at him in a flurry of bright red embers that resembled, ludicrously enough, like flower petals. This time he was ready and met it head-on with a counterattack, deflecting its winged arm with his own sword. He took advantage of the rare opening by grabbing the hidden combat knife strapped to his waist and throwing it at the Persona's head. The knife struck it between its large yellow eyes, and the Persona dissipated into countless blue fragments before vanishing entirely. Not wanting to waste this opportunity, Sho tightened his grip on his katana and sprinted towards Amagi, whose eyes were now wide with alarm at seeing her Persona momentarily incapacitated. He grinned at the sight and finally felt the long-awaited exhilaration that was missing from most of the battle.

"You're mine!" He roared before swinging his right katana over her head. Amagi recovered quick enough to sidestep him, but not before the upper sleeve of her kimono caught the edge of his blade. The sound of fabric ripping was encouraging, and he continued his onslaught by charging at her with his shoulder. The force earned him a sharp cry from Amagi as she stumbled backward. Believing he had another opening, he swung his other katana in a wide arc, but the blade hit something metallic and sent a ringing sensation up his arm. She had blocked the katana with her fan and with a forceful motion, she pushed his blade away. Undeterred, Sho was already beginning to launch another chain of attacks, but he was blinded by a sudden blaze of pink energy and struck by an invisible force. He was weightless for a moment as he fell through the air in a brief tumble, and he briefly fought against gravity before landing on his feet.

_Damn her. _Whatever it was, Amagi's counter wasn't exactly powerful, but it was unexpected and succeeded in throwing off his attack. To his annoyance, his vision was still blurred. He blinked furiously until it finally cleared only to find Amagi surrounded by that pink light he saw earlier before being knocked away. She was suspended in midair, her feet dangling slightly above the ground and her black hair dancing around her. Her Persona had reappeared behind her, shielding her with its wings and bathing her in that strange light, which he suspected had some kind of healing properties. After an instant, the light disappeared and Amagi sent her Persona away. With its dismissal, the girl landed back on her feet and faced him again, her fan at the ready.

The brief reappearance of the girl's Persona snuffed out his one moment of victory. But what angered him more was Amagi herself. It was only a matter of time until her stamina would run out and she would no longer be able to keep her Persona at her side, but she still kept her defensive stance like she truly believed she had a chance of winning against him.

The way she fought reminded him of that damn Narukami.

"It's no use, Princess!" He spat at her, pulling himself upright. Even though he was able to stand, it took some effort to keep himself from swaying on his feet. He felt slightly dizzy, and to make him more irritated, everything around him appeared to be out of focus. "We both know you can't keep going on like this!"

"I won't give up!" A few strands of her black hair were askew across her face from the fight, but she didn't brush them back. All she concentrated on was him.

He laughed in an attempt to annoy her, but the effort made him lightheaded. "Still mad at what I said about your leader? "

With a flourish of her fan, she summoned her Persona once more and sent a concentrated stream of fire at him. It took some effort to evade, but he was unscathed. He could tell that she was getting tired since the attack was slower than the last one, but he took little joy from this realization. Right now every movement he took, no matter how trivial, was draining him bit by bit.

It wasn't his style, but he would have to rely on his words to throw her off her game and buy himself some time. "The 'bonds' and other crap you _think _make you stronger? In the end, it's all pointless!"

"You wouldn't understand!" She didn't follow up with another attack, but her posture was tense. Her Persona was nowhere to be seen, and he assumed its dismissal was due to Amagi wanting to conserve her energy.

"Still convinced I'm the bad guy, eh?" He leered, stalking forward with his katana. "You really ought to be disappointed that my plan didn't work out."

The outrage on her face was almost priceless. "What are you saying? You forced my friends to fight each other in some deranged tournament so you could end the world!"

"What I'm saying is that I could have saved you, if your Leader let me."

Her lips parted slightly at this. "S-save me? From what?!"

His face tilted upwards and he spread his arms open, his swords pointing skyward. "You wanted it before, right? To leave this town? I remember seeing you on the Midnight Channel after they found the first two bodies."

Sho's eyes went from the hazy sky above them and back to the girl. He wasn't even close enough for an attack, but she looked as if he had stricken her.

"You were bored of this backwater town as much as I was. It may have been for different reasons, but you _hated_ living here, huh? And I bet a part of you still does, what with having to wait hand and foot on the ungrateful assholes that stay at your inn."

Amagi said nothing but her fan was still in her hand, waiting for him to make a move.

"If everything went like it was supposed to, I could've saved you the trouble of living the rest of your days in the middle of nowhere. But instead, Narukami chose you idiot Persona users and the rest of the shitty world instead of nice, easy oblivion."

Despite his vision being less than perfect, he could make out the conflicted expression on her unsmiling face. As much as he liked the fact that he was keeping her on her toes, he was perplexed by how she looked right now. Unlike how she looked back in his room at the inn, what he saw wasn't pure anger. It wasn't fear either-he's seen that plenty of times to know what it looked like, and he didn't see it in Amagi. Sho didn't doubt that at least some small part of her was afraid, but the girl didn't let it distract her from fighting, so why would it get to her now?

He covered up his own confusion with another taunt. Sho shifted his weight to his back leg and pointed one of his katana in her direction. "What's with that long face? Don't want to admit that I'm right?"

"You really haven't changed."

He heard the words clearly enough, but the way she said them and the way she looked at him as she did...they may as well have been speaking different languages. Something hot crept up his neck as he lowered his katana to get a better look at Amagi. She was still armed with her fan, but she broke out of her stance. Instead she just stood there, her eyes trained on him with that weird look still on her face.

"Yu-kun said he hoped you would. So did Labrys," The girl continued her blabbering, her voice slightly raised as she did. "When you left, they both hoped that you would grow. They wanted you to learn more about people. Maybe even a little about yourself."

The heat he felt at the back of his neck flared upwards, and now his head was pounding. Not wanting Amagi to catch this, he raised his swords to prepare for another attack. "Shut up."

"But you didn't learn anything. I can see that."

The pounding in his head worsened. Amagi was now a blurry figure in pink. "I said shut up, Princess. Fight's not over."

Amagi's shoulders straightened, unaffected by his warning. "Even after everything that happened, you still can't see that you're wrong."

He bit the inside of his cheek. The pain from his teeth helped him keep his focus on the fight and on her. "The hell are you giving me a lecture for? " He posed the question before laughing bitterly. "You've been raised in a comfy little cage all your life! You never had to lift a damn finger to get anything you wanted! There was always someone to get it for you!"

The pain spread across his forehead, and his scar throbbed agonizingly. "You don't know a damn thing about me! Where does a sheltered little princess like you get off telling me that there's anything worthwhile about this shitty world or the shitty people in it?!"

The sound of the fog moving through the stagnant air was the only sound between them. The throbbing in his head and across his eyes was almost unbearable now. He was sure Amagi couldn't hear it, but a high-pitched ringing resounded in his ears. His teeth bit even harder against the inside of his cheek, and the metallic taste of blood seeped onto his tongue. His eyes could see her through the fog, standing motionless like some elegantly dressed doll cut from porcelain. Even during this temporary moment of lucidity spurred from the excruciating pain that resounded in his head, she still watched him with a look to her eyes that was incomprehensible.

"You're so intent on hating this world that you're blind to everything else." She spoke over the fog and the ringing in his ears. "You really still are an angry child."

Something snapped inside of him, and as soon as it did, he was practically flying across the ground to get to Amagi. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" He heard someone with his voice screaming. Even though it sounded like him, he didn't pay attention; all that mattered was _her_. He didn't know why she was making that face at him, why she was looking at him like the way she was, but he could tell _she wasn't scared of him_, and that was all wrong.

He had to set things right. He had to make her afraid.

He held his katana at either side of him as he sprinted to her, intent on bringing the dual blades down at her with his full strength behind them. He had forgotten the searing pain that plagued him just now and he could see everything with almost frightening clarity, including the flash of yellow eyes and pink feathers as Amagi's Persona rushed toward him again at full speed. Amused that the girl would try the same tactic again, he continued to dash toward the winged Persona. At the very last second before it could strike him, he held his breath and evaded the Persona's attack with a fast, brief leap through the air. It hadn't even realized that he was no longer in its line of sight after he landed on his feet. The Persona was well behind him as he continued his charge towards Amagi, who unlike her guardian, had seen him.

The world was so clear that if he had stopped, he would have been able to count every strand of hair on Amagi's head and he would have seen his own reflection in her large, dark eyes before he slashed down his right sword at her. As he expected, she parried his attack with a precise movement of her fan. What she didn't predict was that his strike was merely a feint, and soon after the sparks of his blade flashed through the air from the impact of striking her fan, Sho fell to his hands and using them to balance himself, he swept his legs at Amagi's feet. She was too shocked to make a noise as she fell backwards, hitting the ground with a solid thud.

He immediately returned to his feet in one fluid motion and stood over her, swords in each hand. She was on her side, trying to recover. Whether she had lost temporary movement of her legs from the impact of the fall or the tightness of her kimono, which was stained and torn at places from the battle, he couldn't tell. He watched with a smug sense of contentment as she slowly propped herself up with her hands. Her long hair hid her face, but he could imagine the look of fear that he was sure was there.

"I guess Sho showed you, huh?!" He jeered at her, drawing near her with his swords casually resting against his shoulders. Now that their fight was done, the adrenaline was leaving him, and the pain from earlier began to make itself known again. His eyes couldn't keep their razor-sharp focus from earlier and for some reason, there was a coldness in the air that was seeping into his skin and slowly settling into his bones.

But still, he wanted to take a little more time to rub the salt in Amagi's wounds.

"Still think I'm a kid, Princess?"

Half a second later he saw Amagi's hand lash out in his direction, and suddenly an object was flying right at his head. He brought up his sword reflexively and swung it away, his eyes following her fan as it was fell uselessly to the ground. "Come on, quit being a sore loser-"

When his attention went back to her, he finally got a good look at her face. If there was fear there from earlier like he wanted to believe, there was no trace of it now. Instead, all he could see was her resolve to keep fighting, as futile as it may have been. She was still on the ground, but her figure was cast in the blue glow of her Persona, which floated protectively behind her. Before he could utter a single thing, Amagi raised her hand, and the Persona lifted its own as if to mimic her.

A burst of crimson light bloomed before him and sent him flying backwards. He could smell something burning again as the world whirling around him in a spiral, but he held onto his weapons as tightly as he could, as if the dual blades were his only anchor to consciousness. Unlike earlier, gravity won this time and he felt his body falling on something hard. When he finally stopped moving, he laid there on his side against the ground, waiting for everything around him to stop spinning. But it was taking far too long, and the mixed taste of ash and blood in his mouth was making him sicker every second that passed.

_Come on...get up. Get up, damn it...!_

He tightened his grip onto the swords at his sides and lifted them up. With great effort, he drove both blades onto the ground to serve as his support. He gritted his teeth and worked through the pain that wracked his body as he lifted himself up from the ground. The blades shook tremulously from underneath as he raised himself to his knees, and then to his feet. During all this he expected Amagi to take advantage of him taking his time to recover, but the follow-up attack never came. When he lifted his head in her direction, she was just standing there. The hand that wielded the metallic fan hung like a useless thing at her side, and the other was clutching the outer collar of her kimono. It was like she was waiting for something.

More confusing still was the damn look on her face. Now there was something that looked like fear in her eyes, but it wasn't the kind of fear that he wanted to make her feel. No, she looked like she was injured, which made little sense. The sleeves of her kimono were sliced open here and there, but she had no serious wounds. There were no cuts, no blood, and yet she still looked like she was in pain.

But from what?

"Why the hell...are you just...standing there?" The question rolled off his tongue in a voice that was tired and cracked. He didn't want to sound weak, especially in front of _her_. He took a step towards Amagi, planting his foot against the ground in an attempt to keep himself up. His knees slightly buckled and the world was beginning to blur at the edges of his vision again. It took more strength than he would have liked to stand, and his hands hung limply at his sides, his fingers barely hanging onto the grip of his katana.

"Stop this." Her voice sounded urgent, almost like a plea. She wasn't the livid, determined girl he provoked her into fighting him. That pained expression on her face gave her a softer look, and she appeared inexplicably smaller and somehow more fragile.

He hated it.

"Quit looking at me...like _that_... " His words were almost slurred now, lifting his foot to take another step towards the girl. "It's...pissing me off..."But as soon as his sneaker made contact with the ground, he lost control of his legs, and Amagi and the yellow fog around her rushed upwards.

And then there was nothing.

* * *

><p>During the entirety of the short walk back to the entrance, Yukiko kept looking over at the unconscious boy as he was carried by her Persona. Konohana Sakuya was supporting Sho from under his arms, lifting him so his feet wouldn't drag along the ground as the winged Persona drifted beside Yukiko. Keeping her Persona tethered to her constantly like this was a strain on her energy, especially after she tried healing Sho's wounds before moving him, but it was a small price to pay. It would have been impossible to have carried him by herself. Besides, any amount of exhaustion she felt was nowhere near what Sho was going through. His face was the palest it had looked all this week, and when she tried to wake him to consciousness, she saw the beads of cold sweat that dampened his bangs.<p>

The outline of the TV became more distinct through the fog. When they reached it, she looked up to Konohana Sakuya.

"You can bring him down now." She instructed softly. Her Persona lowered the boy slowly enough for Yukiko to get under his left arm so she could support the taller boy with her shoulder. When she dismissed her Persona completely, the addition of the full weight of another person almost sent her falling, but she managed to keep both of them up. She wouldn't have to stand with him long-she just needed to get him through the TV.

Trying to ignore the warmth rising to her cheeks from having someone, especially a boy, being so close, her arms wrapped around Sho's waist as tightly as she could and she plunged headfirst into the TV screen. The portal widened, pulling them both in, and she closed her eyes as they fell.

The sensation of plummeting through the air immediately stopped when she felt the solidity of the floor that she landed on. Her eyes flew open, only to find darkness surrounding her. She held her breath and laid motionless against the tatami mat, straining to hear the sound of approaching footsteps and waiting for her eyes to adjust to the gloom around her, which was such a sharp contrast against the brightness of the TV world.

After a few minutes had passed, the rain that softly fell outside and her own subdued breaths were the only noises she could hear. She breathed a sigh of relief, but then she suddenly became aware of the heavy arm that was around her shoulders. She shifted from underneath its weight and turned on her side, only to find how close Sho's face was to her own. Heat spread across her face and down her neck from the realization, and the sound of the rain was drowned out by the rapid beating of her heart.

From where she was, she could see the spots of dark ash that smudged the pallid skin of his face and the way his body was heaving from the irregular motions of his ragged breathing. Even when he wasn't awake, Sho didn't know any peace.

She decided she could find another time to be mortified about the situation later and tried to come up with a solution to get him over to his futon, which would be a more comfortable place for him to rest than the floor. On this side of the TV, she was on her own. Knowing she wouldn't be able to lift the unconscious boy, who was heavier and taller than her, she decided the only practical solution was to drag him. She carefully squirmed out from underneath his arm and got back to her feet. She then bent down to grab both his arms, and with as much remaining strength that she had, she pulled him across the floor. As she moved him, the already ripped sleeve of her kimono loosened from the strain of dragging her guest, but she tried to push the state of her dress aside. A kimono could always be washed and stitched back together, but the same couldn't be said of Sho.

She set his arms back down when she reached the edge of the futon. Without taking a moment to catch her breath, she knelt beside Sho and placed her underneath his back. Again she felt the blush bloom across her cheeks upon feeling the taut muscle underneath the fabric of his shirt, but she pushed her feelings of embarrassment aside as she pushed him onto his side and rolled him onto the padded mattress until he was resting on his back again. Relieved that this laborious (and flustering) experience was over, Yukiko allowed herself to take a moment to rest. She sat next to the futon, extending her legs along the tatami mat. Her eyes caught the dirt and soot that stained her kimono, but at this point, she was beyond getting worked up about it.

She looked over at Sho, who still looked like he was in discomfort. When she thought back to the battle, she recalled one detail that had bothered her: Sho had fought by himself during the entire thing. Back then it was more of a curiosity that she quickly forgot since she was forced to defend herself for most of the fight, but now the absence of his Persona was more glaring than ever. Yu-kun told all of them that Sho had gained the ability to summon a Persona during their last battle, so why didn't it appear?

She considered the possibility that Sho didn't summon his Persona because he didn't think she was worth wasting the energy, but that didn't seem right. Behind every vicious slash of his blade and lightning-quick movement of his feet was a burning desire to win. He may not have thought much about Yukiko as a person, but he fought with such ferocity that it was hard to believe that he didn't take the battle seriously. Had he not let his guard down towards the end, it would have been a solid victory for him.

_Maybe that's why I was able to land that hit on him...he thought the fight was over. _Unconsciously her fingers touched her collarbone where he had charged at her with his shoulder. The skin was sore to the touch and a bruise may have formed later, but that was her most grievous injury. Even without his Persona, Sho was a terrible force to deal with, yet there was no sense of bloodlust behind his attacks. He fought with the single-minded pursuit of winning against her, but if he really wanted to seriously hurt her, he could have done just that when she was on the ground. Several months ago he was capable of kidnapping Kirijo-san and her allies to use them as bait for her friends, and on top of that, he savagely beat down Adachi-san for betraying him during the climax of the tournament. The boy back then _was_ bent on destroying Inaba and the rest of the world, and she couldn't say for certain if he would have thought twice about cutting her down if she was in his way.

But the boy in this room, the one who looked like death warmed over as he was sprawled on the futon, _didn't_ kill her. And until this night, he kept to himself and didn't go out of his way to instigate a fight. Those were all actions uncharacteristic of the sadistic nihilist that Yu-kun had stopped back in spring.

_And I told him that he hadn't changed...I _said _that to him. _

Spurred by her ever-constant guilt, she knelt over his sleeping form and lowered her hand over his forehead. She hesitated at first, but she brushed aside his thick red bangs and settled the back of her hand against his forehead. Her other hand went to her own forehead to compare their temperatures, and as she feared, Sho's skin was hot and clammy to the touch.

_He may be running a fever_, she thought anxiously. She was about to take her hand back, but it lingered there. With his hair brushed back, his scar was in full view before her. The two deep gashes ran across the skin of his forehead and the bridge of his nose, finally ending at his cheeks. She felt something tug at her chest at the sight of it, and Yukiko was suddenly overcome with an inexplicable sadness. She must have sat there for a while before finally realizing that her hand was still on his forehead and she snatched it away, grateful that he wasn't awake. She wasn't sure what would be more humiliating: him finding her like that or what he would say.

Yukiko only allowed a few seconds for her to feel embarrassed and then pulled the futon's blankets over the boy to cover him. When she saw the time displayed by the hands of the clock hanging on the wall, she realized now would be the perfect time to look for any medicine that may have been in the storage room. Since she felt she was partially to blame for his condition, she had to do something about it, and feeling sorry for herself and feeling sad for Sho wasn't going to make anything better. She got back up and walked softly to the screen door that led into the hallway. After confirming that no one was around, she stepped out.

* * *

><p><em>He could hear muffled voices chattering inanely over his head. He wished he could tell them to leave him alone, but the back of his throat was so parched, like someone had forced him to gulp down sand and each grain had torn away at his vocal cords as it went down. He wanted so badly to tell the voices to shut up, to tell them to go find his dad because he would know what to do. The voices continued to talk, and something as sharp as a needle started to pick away at the back of his head. The dryness in his throat felt worse and he tried to call out to the voices, but he still couldn't. The needle moved faster now, digging deeper into his head each time it fell. Nausea swept over him as he laid there powerless, and something hot was constricting itself around him, squeezing out the air from his lungs.<em>

_The voices went abruptly silent, and his panic at having been left alone kept him pinned down . His own body was fighting against him, overpowering him to stay on his back so he could lay there and die. His fingers dug into the palms of his hands as he fought back against the trap that was his own flesh and bones, and he finally managed to crack open his eyes. Against the blinding whiteness that surrounded the air, he could see the outline of someone standing over him. It didn't look like the tall, skinny silhouette of his father, but whoever it was seemed familiar all the same. Most of its face was hidden in shadow, but the eyes weren't-they pulsed with an eerie light, lending them the appearance of cold blue stars. _

_No words came out when he tried to speak. Although his voice was gone, the shadowed figure understood the pain he was in and reached out its hand towards him as he laid there. Its hand rested against his forehead, sending a blessedly cool wave that washed over him entirely and the suffocating heat that threatened to smother him immediately receded. The pounding in his head lessened to a series of dull throbs, and his lungs began to fill with air again as his breathing returned. _

_His eyes could open a little more now, and he tried to get a better look at the figure, but it had taken a step back. He tried to talk, but there was nothing. He felt his lips forming the words but they weren't coming out. The panic he felt before returned twofold, and he didn't know why, but the last thing he wanted was this person to leave his side. When it turned away, his hand shot out and his fingers grasped tightly around its wrist._

_At his touch, the figure turned back to face him and the white light was finally giving way to reveal the figure's face..._

A pair of large, almond-shaped eyes stared at him from a heart-shaped face framed with long black hair. His chest fell at the realization that they were the wrong color.

"Um...how are you feeling?" Amagi asked in a tentative tone.

He had caught her hand as it hovered over his forehead, and he looked at the small wrist that was trapped in his vice-like grip. Her fingers were holding a damp white cloth. "What are you doing?" He demanded to know, hiding his relief at being able to talk.

"Trying to keep your temperature down. Could you let go of my hand please?"

Doing the opposite of what she requested, he held onto her. His eyes briefly roamed the room that he came to know as his temporary lodgings at the Amagi Inn. "How did I get here?"

To her credit, she didn't falter before his line of questioning. "My Persona carried you over to the TV and we went through."

"I heard voices," he went on, not knowing if he could fully trust the girl's account of things that may or may not have happened while he was knocked out. "Where are they?"

At this she feigned ignorance. She was pretty good at it, too; she genuinely looked like she had no idea what he meant. "There isn't anyone else here-"

"LIAR!" He interrupted her, still keeping her wrist in his grip. He wanted to sit up, but everything in his body was screaming at him to stay down. "I _know_ you called Kirijo and your friends while I was out cold! How big of an idiot do you take me for?!"

Suddenly his chest began heaving, and the nausea he experienced in his dream returned and overtook him. The room began to slowly spin, like it had gone off its axis. The only thing that remained anchored in place was the girl in front of him, who reacted to his outburst with unnatural calmness. "I told you before not to call me that."

"I don't give a damn about what you tell me." He seethed through his teeth, trying to hang onto his quickly fleeting consciousness and his grip around Amagi's wrist. His mind was working through a deep fog, his thoughts barely forming in his head. "You...I won't let you ruin everything..."

"What?"

"I...I have to keep looking." He wasn't sure what he was saying anymore, but it was important for her to hear this. "You can't keep me here... soon enough, I'll be back in the TV..."

A sharp pain cut through his head, as if someone had just buried a knife through his temple. He winced and bit back a groan, but it was too late-the girl had seen. "You're getting worse. Please, let go of my wrist." She repeated with more urgency.

His chest, which felt strangely hollow, heaved with the dry laugh that escaped his lips. "Why? So you can call your friends?"

That strange expression appeared on her face again-the one that made her look like she was in pain and he wasn't sure if it was from him holding her wrist. "I'm not going to."

Amagi wasn't going to trick him-of course she was going to call for help! If fighting her had taught him anything, it was that she was patient enough to wait for an opening to exploit. "Why...should I...trust you?"

He thought he had her there, caught in her own lie. But her dark eyes never looked away from him when she answered in a calm, even voice. "Because we made a promise. Remember?"

At her words, the memory of the deal that he had struck with her passed through his sluggish mind. It was after he snuck into his room that Amagi promised she would hide him here in exchange for the safety of her friends. On that night she was wearing the same kimono she had on now, except its sleeves were intact back then.

"A promise..." He wasn't sure why, but he could feel himself relax back against the futon. Slowly, he felt his fingers loosen their grip around her wrist. Unlike what he thought she would do, she didn't grab her hand right away. Instead she moved the cloth over him and lowered it, shielding his eyes from the light of the hanging ceiling lamp. The cotton was still damp with the water it was soaking in, sending pleasant chills against his skin.

If Amagi said anything else, he didn't hear her. The last thing he remembered was the soft brush of her fingertips against his forehead as she adjusted the cloth, and then his treacherous body succumbed to sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>Writer's Note: <strong>Whoo, Chapter 2 down. I want to thank everyone for the reviews, favorites, and follows-they're really encouraging and I love to see them! I know this ship is nonexistent, but I couldn't stop thinking about what could happen in my head, and here we are. Hurray for the powers of imagination, sugar, and free time !

Really, thank you for reading. Please let me know what you think!


	3. Fever Dreams

Chapter 3: Fever Dreams

_"That's enough!"_

_He didn't heed the garbled voice calling out from the intercom above his head, and he continued to thrash his opponent repeatedly across the face. His knee kept the boy pinned underneath him, but he kept squirming like a little insect. Nevertheless, Sho got a charge from the crunching noise his knuckles made whenever they hit across the nose, and he liked seeing the way the blood flew and splashed in bright droplets against the tiles of the room, crimson against gleaming white._

_"Damn it, what are you waiting for? Restrain the subject!"_

_Over the sounds of his fists and the other boy's pathetic whimpers, he barely heard the pressurized doors sliding open and the heavy footsteps that followed soon after. He was able to get in another quick chain of punches before a pair of arms took him by each of his shoulders and hauled him off his prey. Two adults in white coats kept him back while another one knelt down beside his opponent and helped him sit back up. The kid's face was a mess, bruises and blood mottling his skin, but even more disgusting to Sho, his eyes were leaking with tears._

_"Can you get up?" The scientist asked him. The boy nodded slowly, but he fell on his first attempt at standing. Sho scoffed at the pitiable display as the scientist helped him get up from the floor. When he was finally on his feet, his head was down and his hairs hung over his eyes, but Sho could still see the tear tracks that stained his dirty cheeks. The scientist escorted the boy, who avoided making eye contact with him when they passed, but Sho had already lost interest. _

_"That was out of line!" The tall scientist holding onto his right shoulder spat at him when his opponent and the other adult were out of sight. _

_"I told him it would've gone quicker if he didn't move so much." Sho answered plainly without so much as a stutter._

_Of course the other scientist, this one shorter and balding, was against him, too. "You went too far. You could've killed the subject if we hadn't stopped you." _

_He rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders beneath the hands that restrained them. "Then that would've been your faults. That kid was way smaller than me, and you still put him in here. For scientists, you're not really that bright, are you?"_

_That particular barb dug into the taller one's skin, and his hold tightened on his shoulder. "You little brat. When Ikutsuki-san hears about this-"_

_"When I hear about what?"_

_Sho turned towards the door at the familiar voice, and he could feel the smile forming on his face when he saw who it was. Dressed in his usual brown suit and black turtleneck sweater, his father stepped into the room with a curious look on his face. He was careful not to step on the tiles stained with blood. "Dad!"_

_"Ikutsuki-san," the shorter scientist started, and Sho fought the temptation to stomp on his foot. "The subject here was too aggressive during the last training session."_

_For the first time this night, Sho was uneasy. "I TOLD you, it was your faults! He was way too weak to fight me and you let him anyway-"_

_"Sho, it's rude to interrupt." Ikutsuki sternly reprimanded him. The glow of the overhead lights reflected harshly off the man's glasses, so Sho couldn't read his expression. "Continue."_

_"It was much worse this time," the taller man continued for his coworker, and the increasing need to punch both of them in their guts almost overwhelmed him. "The other subject was almost unrecognizable. He's going to need stitches and some facial reconstruction, and maybe even some counseling after this."_

_Ikutsuki nodded once, absorbing all the information that these two bottom feeders were relaying to him. Sho was unable to take a breath until the head scientist asked, "What was his time?"_

_The other two looked at each other in confusion. "Excuse me?" The shorter one asked hesitantly._

_"Sho-kun's completion time. What was it?"_

_The taller one's hand lifted from Sho's shoulder to scratch his head. "We're...we're not sure. When we saw that the subject wasn't stopping, we all rushed in here."_

_The head scientist's shoulders heaved with a heavy sigh of disappointment. "Honestly, what am I paying you for? None of you stayed back to keep time?"_

_Sho relaxed after it dawned upon him that he was vindicated. He looked up at the two idiots smugly, watching them squirm in front of his father._

_"We're sorry, sir." The short scientist finally answered, defeated._

_Ikutsuki's polite smile didn't reach his eyes. "Now, now, just don't let it happen again. Time is a bug after all."_

_Again, the two scientists exchanged bewildered looks over Sho's head. "A...a bug, sir?"_

_"Yes, because it always flies!"_

_The silence between the scientists was broken by Sho's laughter. This time, Ikutsuki's smile was genuine. "Thank you, Sho. Unlike my employees, I knew you would appreciate that." He shot the idiots a warning look. "Speaking of which, the session is over. I'll take Sho back to his room. Why don't you tend to the other subject? And get someone to clean this mess up."_

_The two men were quick to leave them, and Sho was happy to see their backs. "You would've been really proud, Dad!" He exclaimed when they were out of earshot._

_"Would I have been?" The scientist good-humouredly asked. _

_"The other kid went down fast. He didn't stand a chance against me!"_

_They left the room and Ikutsuki listened intently to him as they walked down the bright white hallways of the facility. At the end were the double doors of the elevator that would take them to the floor where Sho's sleeping quarters were. _

_When they reached the elevator doors, Ikutsuki swiped his badge in the card reader and punched in a numeric code on the control pad. Sho's reflection in the metallic surface of the doors stared back at him, an image of a 10-year-old boy with blue eyes and red hair. The reflection seemed to be an exact copy of its owner, but for a second, he realized that his reflection's lips weren't moving even though Sho himself was talking to Ikutsuki. He trailed off in mid-sentence when he saw that the him in the elevator doors was mutely staring back at him. Unsure if his eyes were playing tricks on him, he brought his hand up to the door and watched warily as his reflection copied the motion. _

_When their fingertips touched, its lips moved, even though Sho wasn't saying a thing. _

_His heart ceased to beat until he felt a large hand on his shoulder, causing him to slightly jump. "Sho, what is it?"_

_His eyes went to Ikutsuki, whose face didn't seem to indicate that he saw what happened just now. Sho looked back at the elevator doors, but they slid open to let the waiting scientist and his charge inside. _

_"...nothing."_

_Ikutsuki didn't ask anything else as they both stepped in, and when the doors closed, Sho's reflection didn't try to talk to him again._

_The doors reopened with a small chime after they descended a few floors. They walked to the end of the long, empty hallway and stopped at the door belonging to Sho's room. Ikutsuki brought his badge up to the card reader again, and after it flashed green and beeped affirmatively, the door automatically opened. As part of his nightly routine, Sho went straight to his bed and sat, his legs dangling over the edge. Ikutsuki remained at the door, and Sho did his best to hide his disappointment at knowing the scientist wasn't going to stay much longer. _

_"It's going to be another busy day tomorrow, Sho-kun. You need all the rest you can get."_

_"For what?" He asked sulkily. "The other kids are puny! They don't last longer than 5 minutes in a fight."_

_As always, Ikutsuki remained unperturbed at the slight outburst. "It's all necessary. You are our most promising subject, and we need to keep tracking your progress."_

_"But the guys you keep throwing at me are a joke! I'm not having fun anymore."_

_The scientist rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Do you really think you're ready for a bigger challenge?"_

_The question sounded more like a proposal, and he felt cautious optimism. "Yeah!"_

_"Now don't get too hasty," the scientist laughed. "If you keep up with your training sessions and do what the other scientists ask, I'll move you onto the advanced experiments when I feel that you're ready."_

_Sho grinned in anticipation. "Okay!"_

_His father smiled. "All right now, get some sleep. I know you're excited, but sleeping is a good method of...wait loss!"_

_Sho laughed again and obeying the scientist, he pulled his legs up onto the bed and laid down on the mattress. The light from the hallway decreased to a sliver before disappearing completely when the door slid shut. After a few minutes of staring at his ceiling in the darkness, he shifted on his side to face the wall. This move proved useless, though- even in the stillness of his room, he couldn't relax. But even weirder, he subconsciously sensed that he wasn't alone here. Unable to shake off the feeling, he turned away from the wall..._

_...to find a girl sitting in a chair positioned next to the table in the center of his room. Although the lights were off, he could see her figure against the shadows that surrounded them. She was asleep, her hair fanned underneath her head as it rested against the table's surface. He saw that she wasn't wearing a white lab coat like all the other adults in the facility. Instead she was dressed in what looked like to be a kimono that was strangely smudged with dirt, and its sleeves were cut in some places. He doubted that she was an employee at the laboratory; she looked older than him, but she looked too young to work here. Could she have been one of the scientist's daughters? More importantly, why didn't he notice her there when he and Ikutsuki walked into the room?_

_"Who are you?"_

_The girl's head shifted slightly against her arms, but she didn't wake. Her lack of acknowledgment irritated him. "Hey, weird girl! I asked you a question!"_

_She still didn't wake, but something very strange happened. The walls started to extend, like someone was holding them by the edges and stretching them out, and the tiles underneath them became warped. White light began to fill the room from an unknown source, making it impossibly bright. He shut his eyes from the glare, and he momentarily wanted to call his father for help._

He found himself back at his room in the Amagi Inn, which differed from the sleeping quarters of Ikutsuki's facility in every way. He looked over at the center of his room, and although the table clashed aesthetically with the one in his dream, Amagi's head was still resting on its surface. As his mind slogged through the haze that filled his thoughts, the events from last night replayed in his head. He had fought the girl in the TV world and he had her cornered after a lengthy battle, but then she threw her fan at him in a last-ditch attack and then there was fire. After he blacked out, he heard disembodied voices and saw blue stars, and then he woke up to Amagi sitting next to his futon. He also remembered yelling at her, demanding to know where her friends were because he was so certain he had heard voices, but he couldn't get her to admit to it. In fact, she said something that actually kept his paranoia in check, and it was the _way_ she said it that convinced him it would be all right to sleep for a while.

What could she have possibly said that would make him believe her?

The sight of her made his head hurt more, so his eyes moved to the clock hanging above the TV. From where he was, he couldn't see the time, so he had no way of knowing how long he had been asleep. His gaze then settled on the familiar shape of the twin swords that rested against the duffel bag next to the closet. The sight of them reassured him, but he couldn't help but wonder what they were doing there in the first place.

He looked back at the girl, who was still sound asleep. In this very room was either the most naive idiot in the world, or the most diabolical schemer who entertained herself by pitting Sho against his own suspicions. Three nights of missed meals, lack of sleep, and whatever illness he had kept him from deciding which she actually was. Amagi's sleeping form slowly faded from his vision, and she would be the last thing he thought about.

* * *

><p>A bird was chirping somewhere, and the distant sound gently eased her back to the waking world where the grey dreariness of morning surrounded her. With a quiet groan, she sat up from the table that served as her makeshift pillow. The realization that she wasn't in her own room almost sent her into a slight panic, but when she found Sho's unconscious form on the futon nearby, her memory came back to her. After returning from the TV World, she wanted to keep an eye on Sho's condition and at some point, she had fallen asleep.<p>

In the early morning light, he didn't look any better. Konohana Sakuya could only heal the minor wounds he sustained from their fight, but her Persona couldn't do anything for his fever. After that one brief incident, Sho didn't stay awake long enough to take any medicine and as tempted as she was, admitting him to the hospital was out of the question. She didn't know his exact reasons for being in Inaba, but he made it clear that he didn't anyone to know that he was here. Even if she had somehow gotten him into the emergency room, the doctors would have said that Sho needed food and rest, two things which he had been depriving himself of the past few days.

Her back and legs were protesting now that she was fully awake. Yukiko doubted that she would last the greater part of a school day on just a few hours of sleep, so she couldn't be more grateful that today was a Sunday. The tears of her kimono caught her attention then, and she turned towards the clock on the wall. The hands read that it was seven in the morning, and in another two hours, the stores in town would be open. Junes would open first, followed by the local shops, including the textile store run by Kanji-kun's mother.

Yukiko glanced over at the futon again. He still looked pale and his face wasn't what she would call "peaceful", but at least he was resting. She hoped that he would remain that way for most of the morning while she was out. Making sure the medicine was on the table where she left it last night, she left to get ready for a trip into town.

* * *

><p>He took another good look at how deep the gashes ran against the kimono's sleeve, letting out a long whistle as he did. "Sooo...what exactly happened to it?"<p>

Yukiko-senpai's hands were clasped behind her back, and a polite smile was tacked onto her lips. Kanji thought she appeared off today, but he chalked it up as fatigue. From what Yosuke-senpai had told him, she was helping out more at the inn for the past week. It had to have been tough for her to juggle her family's business and school at the same time, so it wasn't unusual for her to be tired...

"Well, you know how there was that thunderstorm last night?"

He looked up at her from the pink fabric of the kimono. "There was?"

Yukiko's eyebrows raised at his response. "How could you not hear it?"

He scratched his head, his brow furrowed as he tried to recall his whereabouts from last night. "I may have fallen asleep. Had a lot of orders to complete y'know, 'cuz ever since that kid yapped, every one of his classmates want their own hand-knit animals. Plus I was already tired before that from having to rush to math class after cutting a couple periods-"

"There was a thunderstorm. A big one." The older girl repeated, her voice raised a slight pitch as she spoke. "I was carrying a bunch of plates and glasses from one room. The lights went out, and then I tripped and dropped everything. It was a mess!"

His eyes ran over the slash marks on the sleeves again. "I dunno, Senpai...these cuts don't look like they came from glass."

"The cuts were from the plates."

"Plates are round."

"They normally are, but did I mention that the plates broke into very sharp pieces?"

"But it doesn't look like the cuts are from plates, either. They look like...they were made by a knife or a sword, or somethin' like that. You get into a fight?"

Right after his last question, the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees, sending a shiver down his neck. He wondered if his mother, the senile hag she was, had forgotten to pay the utility bill this month, or if the heater had unexpectedly given out.

"Huh, did it just get cold?" His attention shifted from the slit fabric of the kimono's sleeves to his upperclassman. The smile on his senpai's face was still present, but it was as frigid as the ice that capped the glaciers found only in the coldest regions of the earth. The air seemed to waver, and he swore he saw fissures of dark energy crackling around her that threatened to break this plane of existence.

"Kanji-kun..." Yukiko-senpai started, her voice still polite, but as cold as the smile on her lips. "You know how we have workers at our inn?"

Unsure of how this conversation made the leap from kimonos to her family's establishment, Kanji chose his words carefully. "Uh...yeah?"

"My family's inn has been in this town for a long time. Since we have a reputation to keep, we go about hiring our workers in a very specific manner. We not only train them to be courteous and timely, but we also teach them that there is only one thing that our customers treasure more than _anything_ else."

The temperature in the room plummeted even further to the single digits and the ends of his hair bristled from what he guessed was the sinister aura emanating from his senpai. For some irrational reason, he knew that if this conversation didn't end the way Yukiko wanted, he would freeze right on the spot. "O...kay. And that is?"

"Privacy." With that word, her eyes turned a shade darker than their usual color. "It's really rude to ask so many questions of our guests, especially when all they want is some peace and quiet from the busyness of their daily lives. Our reputation would suffer if we got complaints about how nosey our workers were."

His chances of living to see another day were dependent on this crucial moment. Yukiko-senpai was giving him a choice between survival and a fate worse than death, and he knew, without a doubt, which one he preferred . "Uh, s-sure, that's important, Senpai! I mean, heh, it's annoying as hell when people can't respect a man's privacy!"

The smile never left her face. "I'm so glad you understand, Kanji-kun. I mean, how couldn't you, right? Your sweet mother and yourself have taken so many orders from all kinds of customers!"

The laugh that followed her statement was high and clear, and whether or not it was her intention, it unnerved him. "Y-yeah, that's right!"

Now that they had reached an agreement, the topic of conversation went straight back to business. "So, when do you think I can expect to have my kimono back?"

No longer caring if plates or swords were what caused the cuts in the fabric, Kanji quickly answered, "Um, we have a backlog, but it shouldn't take longer than two weeks. I'm sure of it! I'll let you know right away when it's done!"

The temperature in the room warmed up considerably, like a winter night transitioning to a spring day in the span of seconds. His senpai's smile was a little less frigid, but he still mistrusted the look in her eyes. "That's great news, then. Well, I leave it to you, Kanji-kun! Now if you'll excuse me, I have some errands to run."

He tried not to sound too relieved. "See you Monday, Senpai!"

With one last smile, the girl turned away and left the shop. After he made sure she was well out of sight from the store's windows, he took another look at her kimono as the tension left his shoulders.

"Man...Yukiko-senpai can be one scary lady."

If he were a braver man, he would have pressed the Yasogami High senior for more information about what really happened to her kimono, but then again, he had fought beside Yukiko-senpai long enough to know she was capable of handling herself. And anyway, if what transpired in the shop was any indication, it was best not to ask any more questions.

Kanji wanted to live long enough to graduate, after all.

* * *

><p><em>"YOU LIED TO ME!" He stood up from his seat so fast that it fell to the floor, and the metal tray along with his dinner went after it when he flung them from the table.<em>

_The clatter of utensils and plates rattled loudly against the walls of his bedroom but his father remained in his seat, regarding him with a disinterested stare._

_"I didn't lie. I said when I felt that you were ready, you would help me with my next experiment."_

_Sho paced restlessly across the floor, fighting the temptation to take what remained of his meal and throw it at the scientist's face. "You've been saying that over and over again like a broken record, but you're wrong!"_

_"Obviously, I'm not."_

_The self-assuredness of Ikutsuki's words brought his feet to a halt, and he slammed the palms of his hands against the table. "I've completed all your damn tests and beaten the crap out of every single subject you've thrown at me! And after years of doing all the pointless, mind-numbing shit you've asked me to do, you're going away? What the hell, Dad?!"_

_Ikutsuki may as well have been made of stone since he didn't balk once during his tirade. "I also told you that I had to fine-tune some things. I need to go out of the city to secure an essential part of the experiment that can't be easily transported-"_

_"Bullshit!" He yelled, gripping at the edges of the table. "You're ditching me! You keep making excuses for it, but that's what you're doing!"_

_The scientist abruptly got up from his chair, his fingers adjusting his glasses as his tall figure casted a shadow over Sho. The boy had never seen Ikutsuki lose his temper, but he wished he had. He understood anger, but he never knew what to make about the eerie calmness that his father maintained even in the most hectic of situations._

_"I'm not staying here if that's how you're going to talk to me, young man." His voice sounded colder than any other time Sho remembered it being. "We're done speaking for tonight."_

_He turned his back to him and headed towards the automatic door. Infuriated, Sho picked up the tray from the floor and chucked it at the scientist's direction, making contact with a part of the wall that was a few inches away from Ikutsuki's head. The man didn't even flinch when the edge of the tray bounced off the wall with a resounding crash. When the door automatically opened at his presence, it revealed two assistants standing outside. Ikutsuki addressed them in an authoritative tone._

_"The subject is having difficulty sleeping. Take care of it."_

_They charged towards the boy, who regretted not having the tray to arm himself. He got in a low kick at one man's shins, but the second assistant overpowered him and grabbed his arms, forcing them at his sides. His coworker recovered quickly enough to grab Sho by his legs and then both men carried him over to his bed._

_"Let me go, LET ME GO!"_

_He tried to thrash against them, but they were too strong. The one assistant held down his legs while the other had one hand pinned across his chest and arms. His other hand was holding a syringe, a clear liquid filling the entire vial. Knowing what it was, Sho's efforts to fight against his father's assistants intensified._

_It did no good in the end. His head couldn't reach near enough to bite the man's descending arm, so he could do nothing to prevent the sharp needle plunging into his neck. Almost immediately his limbs were as heavy as logs and they sank against the tangled sheets of his bed. After a few seconds, he saw their hands lifting from his arms and legs, but his body was still pinned down. They assistants left wordlessly, and the overhead lights went out with a click._

_But even when he heard the door shut, he sensed that there was someone else in the room with him. The lower end of the mattress wasn't level with the rest of the bed-it was like someone was sitting there. Unsure if his drug-induced stupor was making him hallucinate, he struggled to lift his head up from his pillow so he could see the foot of his bed. Someone taller than himself sitting there, looking back at him with blue eyes that glowed like cold stars. A large, X-shaped scar was emblazoned across his forehead with the same blue light that shone faintly in the dark._

_"Who the hell are you?"_

_His visitor chuckled amusedly. "You already know who I am, don't you, Sho?"_

_He couldn't find anything smart to say because he knew deep down that this person was right. That voice was deeper, sounding like it belonged to someone a few years older than Sho, but it was familiar all the same. His eyes were also similar to the ones that would stare back at him whenever he faced his own reflection._

_He fought against the chemicals coursing in his veins, the visitor's name forming on the tip of his tongue."Minazuki?"_

_He pressed a finger to his lips, and his blue eyes went to the center of the room. Sho suddenly heard a noise in the direction that Minazuki was looking, and there he saw the girl from a few days (or was it years?) ago. Under the influence of the sedative and without the lights to help him make sure, he couldn't tell if her kimono was blue or purple, but the color of it melded with the darkness of her hair as it brushed against her back when she moved._

_"You again? What are you doing here?"_

_Like last time, she paid him no attention and set a bowl on the table. After what he pulled during Ikutsuki's visit, he was surprised that they allowed him a second meal._

_"I'm not hungry." He lied, ignoring the hollow feeling in his stomach that even the sedative couldn't numb. _

_She still didn't say anything as she prepared the table, and his annoyance with the strange girl flared up. "Are you deaf?!" In frustration, Sho looked back at Minazuki. "Do you know her?"_

_The older boy said nothing, his eyes continuing to follow the girl's movements with keen interest. Sho was not only confused by his silence, especially since Minazuki had always been ready to provide an answer to any of his questions, but he was utterly dumbfounded by the way he was staring at the girl._

_"Hey, Minazuki?" He repeated his name, his voice sounding fainter from the medicine that his father's assistants forced on him. "Minazuki?"_

_Sho followed Minazuki's gaze back to the table, and as if she just realized he was there, the girl looked at him over her shoulder with a puzzled expression. Something caught in his eye and began to cloud his surroundings. He saw her lips move, but he couldn't tell what she said._

_"Why are you bothering me? Who are you?"_

He blinked his eyes, and the facility and Minazuki were gone . Here the lights were on, and the tiled walls of his old sleeping quarters were replaced with framed sliding doors that had illustrations painted on their screens. Like in his dream, the girl was wearing a kimono different than the pink one he was used to seeing her in. It was dark blue with a subtle flower pattern decorating the hem and shoulders, and she kept it tied together with a red obi.

"Are you all right?" This time when she spoke, she had a voice.

He shook his head wearily, propping himself up from the futon with his elbows. His head throbbed painfully, and every ache in his body was screaming at him to stay down. "I didn't say you could come in."

She looked slightly guilty at this. "Sorry, but I wanted to bring you some lunch. " She moved away from the table to reveal a small porcelain teapot and a light meal of soup and rice.

Annoyed that she wouldn't leave him alone for a single moment, Sho was feeling less than appreciative of his hostess's actions. "What, feeling guilty about your cheap shot from yesterday?"

He expected an indignant response from her, but Amagi didn't give him one. Instead, she kept prattling on about the stupid food, sounding much like she did when she got on his case about skipping his past dinners. "You haven't eaten anything since yesterday morning."

He rolled his eyes and sank back onto the futon. Too fever-ridden and aggravated to tolerate this back-and-forth with her, he moved on his side to face away from Amagi. "Just leave it there and get out."

There was silence for a few seconds, like she was hesitating, but eventually he heard the rustle of her kimono. He could feel her eyes looking back at him when she stopped at the door. "Please try to eat a little. I'll be back for the tray later."

He heard the door slide behind her and he listened intently to her footsteps as she walked down the hall. Sho then shifted onto his other side and stared at the table where she had set the meal. The sight of it recalled images of Amagi's fan flying at his head and then the crimson burst of fire she sent at him soon after, and any appetite he had was temporarily satiated with resentment. To add to that, the lack of argument just now on Amagi's part left him disgruntled. The unsatisfactory outcome of their fight still stung, and he wanted to at least get back at her with insults.

Wanting to move around to stretch his limbs, he shoved the blanket off and staggered towards the table. The scent of the clear broth wafted subtly in the air, but he ignored the meal. A square package of wrapped medicine rested next to the teapot, and looking at the capsules brought to mind the bitter coating and chalky aftertaste of the medicine he would force down when he was Ikutsuki's test subject. Sho left the pills where they were, feeling that whatever illness he was experiencing would soon be remedied with more sleep.

He turned away from the table, and then he noticed his twin swords-they were still in the same spot from earlier. He was honestly surprised to even see them there since he figured that Amagi would have at least hidden them by now, if not outright disposed of the weapons. Deciding that not taking them now would be stupid, he moved towards his weapons. The shine of the jagged blades made him temporarily forget the chill that began to sink into his skin, and when he took the grips in his hands, he felt like he regained a part of himself.

He couldn't help what happened in his dreams, but here in reality, he had control.

A wave of lightheadedness overtook him then, making him sway slightly on his feet. After picking up his swords and his duffel bag, he returned to his futon. He sat on the mattress and placed his swords against his leg, covering them with the edge of his blanket. For good measure, he positioned his duffel bag on top of the swords so its cylindrical shape covered the outline of the dual blades.

Whoever came through that door, be it the Kirijo dogs or Amagi's friends, Sho would be more than ready for them. He _had_ to be, because Minazuki wasn't here to back him up.

He glanced over at the end of his futon, and he detested himself for temporarily hoping that Minazuki would be sitting there. The empty spot on the mattress recalled the image of Minazuki in his dream, which was undoubtedly distorted by his illness. He didn't remember how old he was when he had that particular fight with his father, but Minazuki shouldn't have been there-he didn't appear to Sho until shortly after the experiment with the Plume of Dusk. Aside from that, the Minazuki in his dream had stared at the Amagi girl in a way that Sho had never known him to look at any other person. Minazuki wasn't observing her like some entertaining distraction or an interesting specimen...he looked like he..._wanted_ something from her, but what?

"Whatever," he scoffed, his hand involuntarily reaching for the handle of the sword by his side. "It's just a stupid dream."

* * *

><p>The point of her pen rapped repeatedly against the paper that she had been trying to focus on for the past half hour, but any effort to recall dates of significant events or the names of historical figures was thwarted by non-academic concerns that involved a currently ill guest.<p>

The circles under Sho's eyes had darkened, and his complexion was now several shades paler than normal. The mumbling she overheard while setting his meal on the table confirmed for her that any sleep he had gotten today was anything but restful.

_He kept saying "Minazuki" over and over again..._

Confused by him repeating his own last name in his sleep, and all too certain that she wouldn't get a straight answer from Sho if she asked, Yukiko searched through her memories for a clue. She thought back to their fight in the TV world, and then the absence of Sho's Persona struck her. Last night when she contemplated this same subject, she was at a loss as to why he didn't summon it. From what she gathered by fighting him, he was impulsive and all too willing to show off his strength, so why wouldn't he take advantage of the Persona that Yu-kun said was passed onto him from...

The pen in her hand slipped from her fingers and dropped onto her assignment. "It was from Minazuki." Yu-kun had told them that "Minazuki" was the name of a soul created years ago from an experiment that a man named "Ikutsuki" conducted on Sho, whose body Minazuki shared. After Ikutsuki's death, Minazuki became Sho's guardian, and he was the one who helped arrange the P-1 Climax in an attempt to grant Sho's wish for his ideal world. Yukiko remembered how Yu-kun's eyes were downcast when he was retelling their former enemy's past, and they all could see that he didn't take any personal satisfaction in knowing that he had a terrible childhood. Worse yet, Sho lost the closest thing he had to a friend after Yu-kun saved him from the monstrous deity that descended upon Yasogami High that night.

_But even if Minazuki is gone, Sho should be able to summon his Persona. Yu-kun saw it himself-_

An electronic beep brought her back from her speculations, and Yukiko realized that her phone had gone off. She picked it up from her desk to see that Chie was calling her. Before the phone could ring again, she flipped it open and brought it up to her ear, somewhat grateful for the break from her assignment and her thoughts.

"Hi, Chie."

"Yooooo!" Her friend's cheerful voice came bright and clear through the receiver. "It's been crazy at my grandparents', so I'm glad we could finally talk! How are you, Yukiko?"

"I'm all right." She answered in a tone that wasn't as credible as she would have liked. The short pause on the other end indicated that Chie wasn't convinced, either.

"When you sound like that, it's hard to believe you. What's up?"

There was nothing accusatory in Chie's voice, but Yukiko's guilt began to eat away at her. "It's nothing major," she hesitated, trying to phrase what she wanted to say in a manner that wouldn't break her promise with Sho and would set Chie back at ease. The issue wasn't that she couldn't trust her; Yukiko knew she could rely on her best friend to listen to her problems. It was hard enough keeping Sho's presence from her family, Yosuke-kun, and everyone else, and Yukiko would have appreciated any advice Chie had.

Still, it seemed wrong to consider saying anything about Sho, despite Yukiko not knowing where she stood with him. He didn't want to be anyone else other than the boy who tried to destroy Inaba in her eyes, always keeping his guard up around her with his short temper and caustic words. She disliked how he constantly accused her of lying and how he rebuffed any of her attempts to help him, but Yukiko suspected that his inability to trust others was something that was nurtured over the years. With Yu-kun's account of Sho's childhood fresh in her mind, she believed that "Ikutsuki" had to have been a callous, self-centered person if he was able to abandon a child he used as a test subject.

_Maybe he treats people terribly because all he ever knew were terrible people_."I'm not sure how to explain it."

"Is it inn stuff?"

She wasn't exactly wrong, so Yukiko went with that scenario. "Kind of."

"Can you give me the gist of it?" Chie posed the question carefully, attempting to find a balance between her curiosity and her concern for Yukiko.

She took a deep breath and exhaled, searching for the right words without giving up names or specifics. To compose herself, she shifted her eyes to the photograph of her friends that she kept on her dresser. Looking at their smiling faces reminded her of the day they had taken it near the Samegawa Riverbank. Yu-kun said that sometimes when he would walk along there, he would cross paths with a stray cat...

"I'm having a problem with this...cat."

Whether she trusted Yukiko or chose to suspend her disbelief for her friend's sake, Chie finally spoke after a long silence. "...a cat?"

"Yes. A stray cat." Yukiko repeated, determined to stay on the course she set for herself. "He's staying around the inn."

To her relief, Chie decided to go along with the conversation. "Maybe someone in town lost him? Have you thought about calling the police station to ask-"

"No!" She put her hand over her mouth, not intending to shout into the phone. "I mean, no. I don't think the cat wants that."

The contemplative look that must have been on Chie's face was easy for Yukiko to picture. "Uh, okay. So why are you having a problem with the cat?"

"He's always yelling at me no matter what I do."

"He...yells?"

Yukiko immediately regretted her poor choice of words. "Well, I call it yelling, but it's that scary sound that cats make when they're mad."

"You mean hissing, I think." Had it been anyone else on the phone, they would have been laughing or asking her if she had been under some recent stress. Thankfully Chie was taking this matter as seriously as humanely possible, working past the ridiculousness of Yukiko's descriptions to find a solution. "If he's causing you grief, why do you let it roam around the inn?"

Chie's question was something Yukiko had asked herself before, but after remembering how awful Sho looked when they returned from the TV world, she resolutely answered, "I feel bad for him, even though he'd probably be angry if he heard me say that."

"Does the cat look like he's been abused or something?"

At Chie's question, she sadly thought about the scar across Sho's forehead. "I think he was, actually."

"What, really? Who the heck would do something like that?! Ugh, if I ever find them, I'll kick their faces in so hard they'll be feeling it for years!"

Chie's genuine concern for the "cat" made Yukiko all the more grateful that they were friends. "I left him alone like he wanted when he first came here, but I don't think it helped."

"Have you tried talking to the cat? You know, all nice-like? "

To help her reiterate the crucial detail that Sho was not a boy, but a cat, Yukiko's mind produced an image of a lean-bodied stray with scruffy red fur, a scar across his head, and the angriest looking expression she could think of. Just as she was about to picture his pointed ears, she bit her lip to keep herself from laughing. In another attempt to regain her concentration, Yukiko's fingers wrapped tightly around the pen that she left on her history assignment. "I have, and I always end up saying the wrong thing."

"Man, sounds like one stubborn cat."

She started rapping the pen against her paper again, the steady rhythm keeping her focused."He _can_ be really moody, but I'm not exactly making things easier for him. It's kind of my fault that he's staying at the inn longer than he probably wants to."

"Seriously? What happened?"

When she remembered how her fight with Sho ended, the weight of her guilt grew heavier and the sound of her pen couldn't ignore it. "I threw my fan at his head. He said...I mean, he did something that really got me mad."

"Oh."

Letting out a defeated sigh, she allowed the pen to slip from her grasp. "Anyway, he's sick now, and I can't just kick him out."

There was another pause on the end, as if Chie knew Yukiko wouldn't like to hear what she was going to say next. "This doesn't help, but if your parents found out that you were taking care of a cat, they would flip."

Yukiko wasn't sure what would have made her parents more upset-a cat roaming around the inn, or a fugitive lodging in one of their rooms, but she tried to push the thought aside. "I know but...he's been through a lot." Feeling that the pen wasn't helping her any longer, Yukiko placed it in the nearby jar with all her other writing utensils, her finger s lingering around the cap when she thought of Sho alone in his room. "I think he's so used to being by himself that he doesn't know how to interact with people. So even if he hates me for it, I don't want to turn my back on him. It wouldn't be right."

"Then it's obvious what you have to do, right, Yukiko? You just have to keep trying."

When she heard Chie speak just now, Yukiko clearly saw the reassuring grin that accompanied her encouraging words. Not knowing what to say, she was quiet as Chie continued. "We both know that's what you'll end up doing anyway. You can't control what the cat does or how he feels, but I know you'll do everything you can to help him out."

Although the physical distance between them was great, Yukiko felt Chie's presence by her side, and her support was enough to cast away her doubts for now. The windowpane above her writing desk reflected the smile on her lips. "Right. I'll do my best."

Chie's laughter was a welcome sound to her ears after not hearing it for more than a week. "That's the Yukiko I know! Defeat your feline opponent with the power of kindness! But still, be careful okay? Muku once got into a bad fight with some strays and they did a number on him!" Chie gasped, as if she were hit by an idea. "Oh, have you tried feeding him? Some cats warm up to you after you've fed them a treat!"

"I gave him some broth and rice earlier today."

"Uh, I don't think cats really like stuff like that. How about some fish? Ooh, wait no, maybe some steak! Cats eat steak, right?"

Their friendly debate on the feeding habits of cats continued well into the early evening, and by the end Yukiko was breathless from laughing.

* * *

><p><em>A long time ago the machines that surrounded him from every side would have frightened Sho, but he was so used to them that a few more than usual didn't so much as faze him. The leather straps that fastened both his wrists and legs to the cold examination table also failed to affect him, and neither did the needle of the IV drip they injected into his vein nor the bright lamps that were suspended above him.<em>

_The only things that caused him any apprehension were the thick, metallic band they fitted around his head and the oxygen mask strapped over his mouth. Even though Ikutsuki told him he would be unconscious during the operation, he disliked anything that hampered his vision. _

_"Are you ready, Sho?" He heard his father's voice over the hum of the countless machines. A few feet above him, Ikutsuki and his assistants stood over their subject. They all had white surgical masks over their faces that matched the robes they wore. Sho couldn't make out any of Ikutsuki's features except for his tall silhouette against the lamplight and the sharp scalpel in his right hand._

_"Yeah." His answer was somewhat muffled from the oxygen mask, but he responded loud enough for them to hear, hoping they wouldn't detect anything in his voice that could be mistaken as anxiety._

_"Let us begin." Ikutsuki's words were completely devoid of any warmth, which was characteristic of the single-minded scientist that he was known to be. At his father's command, Sho heard a low hiss and his oxygen mask grew cooler from the gas that was flowing into his mouth and nostrils. Remembering what his father told him earlier, he began to count backwards in his head from 100. When he reached 96, Ikutsuki and the operating room gave way to complete darkness. _

_The harsh glare of the overhead lamps was gone when he opened his eyes again. Instead of the hard surface of the operating table , he felt like he was floating in cool water. He looked to his wrists and found that the restraints were gone. Encouraged by this, he moved his legs, which were now also free of the leather straps that once bound him. He stood up, his feet splashing the dark water around him. An endless abyss stretched before Sho, resembling a night sky without stars. He was beginning to fear that the wrong movement would send him tumbling forever into the shadows when a soft blue object shimmered above him. It was the only source of light in this place, and it called to him, as if it spoke in a language that only he could understand. He held out his hands and it slowly drifted down to him, its crystalline shape resembling a small feather. When it landed in his waiting palms, it sent a cold sensation against his skin that reverberated throughout the rest of his body._

_He wasn't sure where it came from, but it made all the sense in the world that it was here and that he had found it. As if it was agreeing with him, the shard answered with a pulse of light. He basked in its inviting glow almost peacefully until he felt something hot lightly scratching at his chest. The shard pulsed again with light, and then the scratch felt more like a cut. Not wanting to let go of the shard, he held it protectively in one hand while he raised the other to his chest._

_That was when the cloth of his surgical robe parted cleanly open, and when he looked down, he noticed his own blood mingling with the tattered fabric. It was like a thin blade had sliced his chest open from top to bottom, but when his eyes searched the shadows, all he saw was the shard floating in mid-air. His mind went blank, and the water wasn't cold anymore when he fell against it with a loud splash. While he laid there, invisible fingers were pulling his skin away from his exposed torso ever so slowly, and the blinding pain broke his daze and he screamed. Wanting it all to stop, his hands clutched as his chest, his fingernails clawing at whatever was causing him this agony, but he could never grasp it. Through the excruciating pain, he saw the shard slowly descending upon his chest. Its cold touch pierced the empty place where his heart was, and when it did, his body convulsed and he opened his mouth to scream again. Against the blue glow, a person was standing over him. Eyes that matched the color of the shard stared coldly at him, watching him die. Something was pulling Sho down now, filling the gash in his chest with water. He thought he saw the figure reaching out a hand to him, but their fingers never touched. The water swallowed him and he went under._

When he opened his mouth, he was surprised when air filled his lungs. Again, his delirium gave way to the annoyingly familiar room at the inn, this time cast in the darkness of the late night gloom. To calm the pounding in his weakened chest, his hand went for the closest of the swords he had stashed next to him earlier in the day. When he felt the familiar shape of the custom-made handle, he thought that would help, but all it did was make him more hypersensitive to his environment. The blanket was more constricting than it was comfortable, and every tick of the clock was a deafening thud.

Footsteps cut through the stillness of the night, and his hand tightened around the sword grip. He couldn't blame Amagi for taking advantage of his condition to call for back-up, nor could he blame her allies for waiting until now to try and capture him. Most, if not all, of the other guests would be asleep, so witnesses would be scarce. As the sound of each step drew closer, his back remained on the futon but his wrist didn't slacken. Even now Sho refused to hide from his captors-if they wanted a fight, he would give it to them, and he would make them regret it.

The screen door finally opened. He cracked his eyes slightly to catch a glimpse of the intruder, only to see Amagi's outline against the shadows. He expected more people to file in, but when she shut the door, he found that it was her and her alone. Sho wasn't sure what to make of this turn of events, but if she wouldn't take this opportunity to call for help, he wouldn't wait around for it to happen. Knocking Amagi out would be easy, and then he could toss his belongings into his duffel bag and make his escape through the TV.

She turned towards him, and he shut his eyes again, feigning sleep as she approached. She must have been convinced of the farce because she didn't even try to wake him. He heard the soft clink of a tray being set on the tatami mat near his head and the rustling of fabric as she took a seat beside his futon. Without looking, he sensed her hand moving towards his forehead, and the fingers around his sword grip reflexively tensed.

_Now_..._I'll attack now_.

But as the command passed through his head, the weapon remained motionless against his leg. Contradicting his initial impulse, hesitation on his part stopped him from carrying out his plan, and the idea of attacking the girl at that moment felt off. Deciding it would be better to wait when Amagi wasn't looking, he did his best not to wince when her fingers brushed back his bangs. When her hand settled against his feverish skin, he was taken aback by how far from unpleasant the contact was, and the realization stirred feelings of confusion and even slight disgust at himself.

She lifted her hand, which left a trace of coolness in its absence as his bangs fell back into place. Soon he heard the sound of water dripping somewhere, and Sho took the risk and cracked his eyes open to find the source. Through the strands of his red hair he saw the girl looking over something, her face obscured by the curtain of her long hair. Seeing that she was distracted, his fingers tightened around the sword grip again.

_She's not looking. Now's my chance! Now!_

Precious seconds slipped by like grains of sand through an hourglass as his own body failed to follow through with what he was telling it and _demanding _it to do. He knew that the moment was gone when he felt the damp cloth that Amagi placed over his forehead, the water-soaked fabric sending chills that contrasted greatly with the unnatural warmth of his body. After a span of time that passed by like an eternity, the girl finally rose to her feet. She walked away from his futon, but her steps stopped by the table. He heard her sigh, the small sound followed by the light clatter of silverware, and then shortly after her steps resumed towards the door. She closed it gently and then Amagi was finally gone, blissfully unaware of the danger she was in.

He opened his eyes and his hand tore the damp cloth from his head. Furious with her and frustrated with himself, he flung off the blankets and the duffel bag that hid away his dual swords. He grabbed them both and held them over his head, desperately searching the blades for defects of any kind. He wanted to blame them for his failure, but he knew deep down that they were merely tools-_he _was the one who decided how they were used.

"Why?" The one question tormented him as he recalled the opportunities he allowed to slip by. He owed her nothing, absolutely _nothing_! Attacking her made sense, and he would've been justified in doing it...but although he knew all that, he didn't _want_ to strike Amagi down. What was more infuriating, when he thought of the ways he could have attacked her just now, imagining the girl in pain did nothing to improve his mood.

He sat up from his mattress, lowering his swords at his sides but keeping his grip on them. The untouched food was gone from the table, but Amagi left the package of medicine there. Like earlier, he ignored it, refusing to endure any more of his hostess's little games. At that point he debated leaving for the TV world, but merely the thought of a hurried escape with limited supplies was enough to exhaust him, and his blame shifted to the girl once more.

"Damn her...damn her..._damn her_!" He seethed through gritted teeth, holding onto his anger at Amagi for as long as he could so he could avoid his own self-loathing.

* * *

><p>As she piled the bowl with the tangerines Kasai-san bought from the market, Yukiko fought the urge to yawn. After a groggy start to the morning that began when she dragged herself out of bed, her school day was a slow stream of drawn-out lectures, quizzes, and short essay assignments. What was especially exhausting was that Yukiko was running on only a couple of hours of sleep. Hearing Chie's voice yesterday had cheered her up, but she still spent the majority of last night tossing around in her blankets and fighting her own doubts-some of them involving Sho and a few about herself.<p>

When she looked at the situation practically, the only thing Sho had exchanged for keeping his presence unknown at the inn was the safety of the same people she agreed to hide him from. Though most of her school friends were busy with their studies or their own personal matters, Yukiko had missed spending time with them after school. Teddie could be sweet when he wasn't being improper, and Yosuke-kun always made her laugh. Yukiko even missed Kanji-kun's scowl when he would visit their homeroom out of boredom. Thinking about her friends made her remember the disappointment on Yosuke's face when she turned down his earlier invitation to Junes for an afterschool snack.

"Teddie's going to be sad." Her classmate commented half-jokingly. "Really, he wanted to come by the inn the other day for a visit. I had to stop him because he wanted to leave in the middle of his scheduled shift!"

_A good thing you did, Yosuke-kun_. She thought, knowing that it wouldn't have been pleasant for anyone involved if her friends stumbled upon Sho at the inn. She placed a pitcher of ice-cold water and a glass next to the bowl of fruit she arranged on the lacquer tray, and then Yukiko weaved her way around the cooks and out of the kitchen. The sight of a few passing workers made her consider changing out of her school uniform and into her own kimono, but she decided against it. Considering how brief their conversations had been and providing that he wasn't sleeping off his illness, it shouldn't take long to drop off the tray of tangerines in Sho's room.

As she walked up the stairs to the second floor, her mind went back to last night when she checked on Sho. His breathing was strangely steady for someone who was so sick, but his skin was still unnaturally hot when she felt his forehead. A reading from a thermometer would've been more accurate, but she had to work with what little options were available to her. Prior to what happened in the TV, Sho barely trusted her with bringing him his meals, and now he wasn't eating them at all. Last night she found the uneaten lunch on the table along with the medicine, which remained wrapped in its packaging. She thought about waking him up then, but even if she had, how would she have convinced him to take the medicine?

_He'd probably think I was poisoning him on Mitsuru-san or Yu-kun's orders. _The tray became heavier at the cynical thought, and she stopped on the landing of the second floor. If he were awake, he would most likely yell at her again for bothering him, and that possibility made her reconsider going to his room. The only thing that she _was_ certain about was that he didn't trust her, and she doubted that save for Minazuki, he didn't trust _anyone_. How could a bowl of tangerines be enough to convince Sho that she wasn't trying to deceive him?

Yukiko shook her head, her eyes focused on the door at the end of the hallway. _It isn't fair of me to think that way._

She didn't know much about Sho, but what scarce details she learned from Yu-kun stayed with her. He grew up in isolation imposed by a man who put his own goals before the wellbeing of the boy he was supposed to take care of. When things weren't going his way and Sho was injured, that same man abandoned him. And now Minazuki, who was Sho's only companion for the past few years, was missing. If she was right about that, it explained why he neglected his own need for food and rest for the past several days.

_Then it's obvious what you have to do, right, Yukiko?_

She began to walk again, her steps tapping lightly against the wooden floors past the other vacant rooms. When she was a few feet away, a loud thud and the sound of Sho's voice shouting disrupted the quiet of the hallway. Her heart leapt at the commotion, and she ran towards his room. A few tangerines fell from the pile she carried on the tray, rolling slowly on the ground behind her.

* * *

><p><em>Cryptic glyphs shone under the mirror-like surface of the circular platform he stood on, and strange white structures jutted out like deformed white crosses under the unnatural glow of the green moon above. The wind howled mournfully around him, and the buildings and houses of the town beneath him were blanketed in a thick red fog.<em>

_He turned his attention away to the center of the platform. At first sight the person standing there looked like a perfect living reflection-he was the same height, and he had the same shock of red hair, but that was where the similarities stopped. He had a different expression on his face and a strange look to his eyes, which otherwise looked so much like his own, as his head was tilted upwards towards the night sky._

_"Minazuki!" He shouted his name over the wind, his heart lifting at the sight of him. _

_The person didn't react at all to hearing his name. He remained where he was, his eyes searching the moon for something he couldn't see. Thinking that he didn't hear him, Sho ran towards the other boy. _

_"Hey, Minazuki!" Sho repeated, picking up his pace. He was running as fast as he could, but the distance between him and Minazuki never lessened. It was like with each step, the platform grew another foot. Feeling as if his chest was about to give out, Sho slowed down to a jog and stopped completely, doubling over from exhaustion. He gasped for air, gripping his knees to keep himself steady._

_When he caught his breath, he saw that he never really did get closer to Minazuki, who looked like he wasn't even aware of Sho's presence. "Why aren't you saying anything? Answer me!"_

_As if in response, the ground shook from underneath them. The tremors were almost enough to knock him down, but he kept his feet firmly in place. The tremors intensified and sent many of the white structures around them crashing down, and still Minazuki was unmoving to the slowly unfurling chaos. . Sho was about to call for him again, but then an unnaturally strong wind kicked up around them, scattering debris across the platform. Waves of heat rippled through the air, threatening to suffocate him, and for a moment he believed that they were thrown into a furnace. The wind picked at the red hair around Minazuki's face, and Sho could see that his eyes were hollow, like what was really standing there was a husk in his likeness._

_"Minazuki, why-"_

_An airborne ear-piercing howl cut him off, and Sho looked upwards. A crack formed across the clouds and the space between them, and with another otherworldly wail, it ripped across the sky and a storm of flame erupted from the opening. A pair of gargantuan claws clamped onto the jagged sides of the tear, and a colossal head bearing the deranged semblance of a human face emerged. From the yawning chasm of fire, __Hi-no-Kagutsuchi'__s__ menacing yellow eyes glared hungrily, and it began its descent towards the figure below him. As everything burned around them, Minazuki didn't look away from the demon falling in the sky, and Sho then understood why his eyes were so empty._

_He bounded into another run, trying with all he had to get closer to where Minazuki was. His hand reached toward him, as if from some irrational hope it would extend across the platform to yank the him away from the demon's path._

_"RUN!"_

_Finally, Minazuki turned his head towards him with that mysterious, wry smile of his. He was speaking, but his words were muted by the tumult of the world ending. The smile remained on his face when the demon's row of teeth came down around him in a deafening crash. _

_"MINAZUKI!"_

His name died on Sho's lips when he woke to the feeling of cold sweat running down his temples. There was no red sky to be found above him, no Hi-no-Kagutsuchi falling from it, and no Minazuki.

But Minazuki's absence only made the images of what he saw all the more vivid, and he immediately threw the blankets off of him. His heart failed to return to its normal rate as he grabbed the swords from his mattress. He heard the sound of quickly approaching footsteps running in the hallway, which only intensified the pounding in his chest. Knowing he couldn't waste any more time, he dashed towards the TV, only to have his foot caught by the blanket he flung aside. The misstep caused him to fall, and a sensation of blinding pain struck him as soon as his head made contact with the edge of the table.

"Goddamn it!" He cursed loudly, ignoring the warm blood running down the side of his head. The footsteps were closer and louder now, and he could have sworn he heard the door slamming open. Not wanting to waste any time, he went headfirst into the TV, but as soon as he was through, something grabbed his arm, trapping him between the room and the portal. He struggled against it, and eventually he knew he succeeded when the pull of gravity drew him into a freefall.

A short while after, he landed with a sound thud. When he looked around, he noticed that the yellow fog that was present during his last visit here was absent. The oddity would have held his attention longer, but he realized that his arm was still weighed down. He lowered his eyes to find the cause of his less-than-grateful descent, and there he saw Amagi crumpled up beside him in her school uniform.

"What the hell are you doing, you moron?!" He shouted, tearing his arm away from her.

Amagi used her hands to lift herself off from the ground. "Who's the moron here?" She redirected the question at him with irritation.

He quickly stood up and put distance between them by taking a few steps backwards. "Don't you have anything better to do than annoy me?"

"You shouldn't be here!" She yelled, regaining her balance. She straightened her back and glared at him with the same defiant look she had when they fought two days ago.

He sneered at the little act of bravery she managed to put up, his hand resting at the grip of his sword. "Don't you remember our deal, Princess? You agreed to be my personal servant, so why don't you listen like you're supposed to and go back to your shithole of an inn?"

The girl's determination didn't falter and she remained where she was. "I'm not going anywhere."

Before he could reply, the ground felt like it moved from underneath him, although it didn't look like Amagi moved with it. His grip tightened around his sword to keep his focus on the troublesome girl in front of him. "Unless you want me to carve up your friends, you'll do what I tell you."

Her hands clenched into fists after hearing the threat against her precious allies. "I won't let you-"

Unlike last night, he resolved to not hesitate raising his swords against her. As soon as he lifted the blades from his sides, her voice faded away and her eyes widened in alarm from underneath her parted bangs. Amagi's change in attitude was more to his liking, so naturally he had to revel in it. "Heh, what's wrong? Cat got your tongue?"

"You're bleeding."

At her observation, blood started to run from his open cut again, although this time its flow was more profuse. His eyes stung from it, and Amagi's sweater, which was already red to begin with, was awash in a deeper shade of crimson.

"It's not stopping. We have to get it cleaned." She started, hurriedly walking towards him with her hand raised like she intended to examine the wound. Wanting to keep her away, he swung his arm out in an arc with just enough force to slap her hand away.

"Don't come near me!" He shouted, hating how raw his voice sounded. Amagi flinched slightly when his hand struck hers, and her reaction almost made him regret lashing out. But at the very least, now she got it. Now she had to be scared enough to finally leave him alone.

And yet, she didn't walk away. She just held the wrist at the spot where he struck it, her eyes never leaving his. "Why is it so hard for you to trust me?" She asked, disbelief and frustration in her voice.

Her question set something off in him, like a small spark igniting a pile of explosives. "Are you friggin' kidding me? Did you seriously justask that?!" He reached up with his sleeve to the cut on his head and he furiously tried to wipe the blood away, but he failed to stem the flow. "How _could_ I trust someone as two-faced as you? Playing nurse, pretending like you give a damn, when we both know that you're biding your time until those Kirijo dogs come after me!"

Amagi kept her distance with that pained look of hers, the _same _look that he had come to despise in the little time he was forced to interact with her. He continued, hoping to say something that would finally make her either fear him or hate him, he didn't care which-as long as she would _go away_. "I'm sick of your little mind games and I'm sick of _you_! So go ahead and call those miserable bastards so I can get it over with and kill every SINGLE ONE OF THEM!"

Like a repeat of what happened from their previous fight, his lightheadedness caused the world around him to tilt upright without warning and he fell to his knees, clutching the sides of his head. His fingers pulled at his hair with the idea that the pain would help him focus again, but it didn't work. Through the blood running down his face and his disheveled bangs, all he saw of Amagi were the ends of the red sweater she wore over her black and grey skirt.

"Call them like I know you're going to." He said again, having lost the energy to raise his voice. "Just stop screwing with my head."

His eyes dropped towards the ground, his hands still gripping his hair as he waited for her to act. For a short while there was silence, and then he heard the distinct sound of something shattering. The blue glow from Amagi's summoning lit up the space around them and without looking he knew that her Persona was behind her. His hands instinctively went to the grips of his swords, even though he did so with mixed feelings of relief and disappointment.

When he looked back up, he was confused to find Amagi unarmed. Her Persona didn't rush him down either, but it simply floated behind the girl as she closed the distance between them. Before he could move, her face was level with his after she knelt down in front of him. She lifted her hand towards his head again, and the shadow of her Persona's arm draped over them as it mimicked Amagi's movement.

"What are you doing-"

"Stay still and be quiet." She promptly interrupted him, and a blue-white glow appeared at her fingertips. Slowly he felt the open gash on his head mending itself, and the ache from the injury considerably lessened. After she was finished, the glow disappeared and so did her Persona along with it. Realizing what she had done, his eyes lowered from Amagi again, not wanting to look at her.

"You should stop accusing me of things I don't plan to do." She stated in a stern, but not unkind, tone. "If I wanted to call Mitsuru-san or my friends, I had a week to do it. Why would I wait this long to tell them?"

_Because you were afraid of me hurting your friends_, he wanted to answer, but didn't. Suddenly he felt something soft brushing against his cheek. Raising his head, he saw that she was carefully wiping the side of his face with a white cotton handkerchief.

"On the first night you stayed the inn, I said that you were running from something. I was only half-right, wasn't I?"

He said nothing, and Amagi's handkerchief moved upwards near his temple, wiping away any blood that was there. "The night I brought you back to your room, you said you had to keep looking for something. And yesterday, I heard you call a name in your sleep: Minazuki."

She looked guilty, like she had just confessed someone's secret. Her hand pulled back with the handkerchief, its white fabric now stained with dried blood. "If you really are looking for someone, you can't be reckless about it. I know you're strong, but right now you're so sick that you can barely stand."

"Why does it matter to you?" He asked sullenly, almost exasperated by her persistence. "I'm not gonna tell you again. Go back and leave me the hell alone!" To prove her previous statement wrong, he rose to his feet so fast that it made him dizzy and took up his swords.

But the girl was unmoved by his threat, and she simply stood back up without a hint of fear in her eyes. "I'm not leaving here without you."

If she did have her fan, she chose not to wield it. All she had in her hand was the dirtied handkerchief, which he was surprised to see that she was still holding. "How are you going to find Minazuki-kun if something happens to you?" Hearing her ask that had the same effect of swallowing bitter medicine. He wanted to believe that she was spouting nonsense, but he couldn't argue that what she was saying was untrue. From the corner of his eye, the cloth dangled from her grasp, and he disliked thinking about his dried blood staining her fingers.

She never pressured him to speak, but she was undeterred by his silence and she waited for him with a kind of patience that he didn't think was common in people. For a reason he didn't know, Amagi looked like she was sorry for something, and the plea in her voice sounded sincere when she spoke again. "Please. Let's go back."

Whether it was the sight of the damn handkerchief or if it was because he didn't want to keep looking at her anymore, Sho couldn't bring himself to attack the girl and he finally put away his swords. He didn't want to waste his breath continuing their argument, and he had a hunch that Amagi shared this sentiment. He made it a point not to look at her as he strode to the TV. She trailed behind him, and he probably would've been more annoyed by her insistence to keep up with his pace, but he was too tired to commit to that.

Her footsteps stopped behind him when he reached the TV. Without looking back at her, he asked her the one question that had stayed with him ever since the aftermath of their fight. "The other day after I passed out, why didn't you just ditch me?"

_Why didn't you leave me behind like Ikutsuki and Minazuki did_? Their names lingered in his thoughts, but he stopped himself from mentioning them to Amagi. Had she left him in the TV World after their battle, he would have been furious, but he was so used to the concept of abandonment that he would have come to terms with it before eventually finding his own way out. If Ikutsuki had taught him anything, it was that humans were driven by the natural instinct of self-preservation. To scare her into hiding him at the inn, he threatened the girl with the lives of everyone she knew. He wouldn't have faulted her for deserting him with the hopes that she would have more time to contact her friends for help.

So he was startled when he heard Amagi's answer. "Because I would've hated myself if I did."

He couldn't see her expression because his back was to her, but his chest tightened at the way she said those words. For once, he couldn't convince himself that she was lying. Thinking that he was sicker than either of them originally assumed, he tried to ignore the notion that Amagi was telling the truth.

"I don't get you, Princess." He muttered to her, and without waiting for a reply, he took a breath and fell into the TV screen, knowing that the girl would follow after him.

* * *

><p><strong>Writer's Note: <strong>Updating took longer than I wanted, so sorry about that. Writing this chapter was tough, and I've been busy with last-minute holiday shopping and making stuff. I haven't even had time to play Persona Q (which is totally fun and cute and lookit, Chibi Koromaru!)! Hopefully the slightly longer chapter helps make up for the delay.

Thank you again for the follows, favorites, and reviews! Seeing/reading them makes me glad and helps keep me going. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and as always, please let me know what you think!

P.S. Happy holidays, and eat ALL the cookies. I know I will :D


	4. Do You Like Scary Stories?

Chapter 4: Do You Like Scary Stories?

The knot in her chest didn't loosen until she saw Sho on the other side of the TV. When she emerged from the portal, he was standing next to his unmade futon. Even though his back was to her, she struggled with what to say, especially after the heated conversation they just had. She didn't plan past bringing Sho back as soon as she saw him jump into the TV.

As she desperately searched for ideas, she spotted the bowl of tangerines and water she had left on the table. Somehow, neither fell over when she slammed the tray down prior to chasing after Sho. "I brought those up here earlier. I thought you may have wanted a snack before dinner."

"Don't bother."

She was beginning to fear that she brought him back only so he could continue starving himself until he spoke again. "What's there is fine. I won't need anything else."

The tension in her shoulders left with the sigh that escaped her, but her relief was short-lived when Sho abruptly dropped to his knees. Yukiko moved quickly across the room and knelt beside him in case he collapsed. "Are you okay?"

"Will you quit your yapping?" He managed through gritted teeth, and then he dropped onto his side against the strewn blankets. Yukiko noticed with alarm that his breaths were shallow, and suddenly remembering the medicine, she turned around and reached for the small package on the table. When she went back to Sho's side, his eyes were already closed.

"Um, hey..." She carefully shook his shoulder, trying to get him back to consciousness long enough to give him the medicine. Yukiko thought about shaking his shoulder more forcefully, but relented when she realized that his breathing had steadied. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead and found that his temperature seemed to have cooled. More reassuringly, his face actually looked peaceful.

For the first time, Sho was sleeping restfully.

Feeling slightly defeated but hopeful that he would finally get some much needed rest, she pulled the blankets over him and left after putting the medicine back on the table. When she went into the hallway, she spotted a stray tangerine a few feet away from her on the floor. Thinking that it must have fallen from the tray when she ran to Sho's room, she approached the fruit and bent down to pick it up.

_I'll come back later to check on him_, she told herself, taking the tangerine in her hand. She would make sure he would take some medicine then.

* * *

><p><em>The smell of antiseptic was so strong in this place. It was in his clothes, his skin, the air...he was half convinced that he had to have been soaking in the stuff. With great effort, he opened his eyes and white greeted him almost everywhere he looked-white walls, white sheets, white curtains. The only color that broke up this starkness was the grey sky outside of the window next to his bed. <em>

_His eyes went to the tube that was attached to his vein, and they followed it to the bag of clear liquid that hung from the pole beside him. The nearby machine that was set up to monitor his vitals beeped in monotone stutters. The sounds irritated him to the point that he wanted to rip the IV from his wrist so he could throttle the machine. He didn't know if this was Dad's laboratory or not, but he hated it. He had to leave._

_To his disbelief, his arms and legs were heavy, like he had woken from a very long nap, and he could only manage the slightest of movements for all of his efforts. When it hurt to even move his fingers, he looked down to take a closer look at his hand. The sounds of the machine raised in pitch to echo the spike in his heartbeat after he realized that somehow when he was sleeping, his hands had grown. The palms were wider, the fingers were longer, and when he looked beyond his hands, he noticed with alarm that the outline of his legs from underneath the thin blanket that covered them nearly extended to the foot of the bed. He had grown taller as well._

_He could figure out how he ended up here later. Right now, he needed to find his dad, even if it meant crawling from the damn bed. But as soon as his fingers grasped the tube attached to his veins, someone spoke._

_"Don't do that. It wouldn't be wise."_

_His head turned away from the IV, unaware that another presence had been in the room with him. When he found that it was empty, he felt even more panicked. The noise from the heart monitor picked up again at his increased heart rate, the acceleration of the beeps quickening._

_"Who's there?" The voice that came out of him was somewhat different than the one he was so used to having, but it sounded similar to the one who just spoke. "You better come out, or I'll find you myself and beat you down!"_

_The unseen visitor only laughed at the threat in a self-assured way that unsettled the boy. "You're the only one who can find me in the first place, Sho."_

_His back stiffened against the hospital bed upon hearing the visitor call him by his first name. The only person who did that was Dad, and this voice definitely didn't belong to Ikutsuki. It wasn't deep enough to be that loon's... _

_"Look over to the window."_

_Too confused to argue otherwise, he did as the voice instructed, and he cursed at himself for how strenuous it was to simply turn his head on its side so he could face the large windowpane. _

_The oxygen mask covering his mouth didn't hide the fact that his face was longer and his chin was more pointed, and his hair had grown to an unruly length. The scars that crossed over his head were still there though, and seeing them was comforting. However long he was asleep, the passage of time didn't make those disappear, and he knew then that the face looking back at him was his own. _

_Or at least that's what he thought, until he recognized the calculating look of his reflection's eyes. _

_"You..." The beeps from the monitoring machine slowed. Knowing that _he_ was with him calmed his nerves. "What happened to me? Where am I?"_

_"Calm down." Under the medicated haze of whatever was pumping into his veins, the other person's voice was clear in his mind. "There was an accident, and you've been asleep for a while. That is all you need to hear right now._

_He stared wide-eyed at him, almost wanting to believe that he was dreaming. Or, this was another experiment, yeah, another one of Dad's tests. The old man wanted to do something different and that's why he created this simulation and put it in Sho's head. He was going to wake up any moment and then Dad would congratulate him with that goofy smile of his and tell him a joke-_

_"He isn't here, Sho."_

_"What do you mean? Where's Dad?"_

_The reflection, with hair just as red as his and eyes just as blue, looked morose...almost sorry. "I will tell you everything in time. But for now, you have to rest."_

_The beeping from the heart monitor was getting slower, confirming what Sho was afraid of: he wasn't going to stay awake for much longer. "Tell me now. I want to know what's going on!"_

_A sudden rustling noise drew his attention away from the window. Hoping to see Ikutsuki, he turned his head at the noise. "Dad?"_

For a second the white walls and the white sheets disappeared into darkness, and then everything was soon alit with a piercing bright light.

"What the hell?" His mind stuttered to a state of awareness, but like in his dream, his body was slow to respond.

"Oh! Sorry, you surprised me." A familiar voice apologized, and the light moved away from him. After his eyes finally adjusted, he recognized the features of Amagi's face. The flashlight she used to temporarily blind him rested on the table. It was still on, its cone of light shining on a small corner of the room.

He rubbed his eyes wearily, moving his head away from Amagi and towards the ceiling above them. "How long have I been out?"

"A few hours. It's almost midnight." There was an awkward pause, as if she was figuring out what to say next. The words they exchanged in the TV World resounded faintly through his head, and his efforts to block them out were hampered by Amagi being in the room with him. Sho was about to tell her to leave when he suddenly heard her move next to his side.

"Here."

He looked away from the ceiling to find a package of medicine in the palm of her hand. His stomach wrenched at the sight of it, and something that tasted like acid rose in the back of his throat. "Get that away from me."

"They may help break your fever." Amagi insisted, her hand unmoving.

Fighting the urge to smack the medicine out of her hand, he turned away from her. "I've taken enough pills to know that whatever that is, it's gonna do jack shit."

There was another pause, like she was thinking about what could change his mind. His patience already stretched, he snapped, "Take the damn hint! I friggin' hate medicine, so stop trying to shove it down my throat!"

He didn't hear her move from where she sat, but she remained quiet. He honestly thought that he had finally achieved a victory, however small, against her, but then she said, "If you do, I'll leave you alone."

He shifted onto his side to face her again, his eyes lifting to meet hers in suspicion. "I won't bother you for the rest of the night if you take the medicine." Amagi repeated evenly. "That's what you want, right?"

Sho was quiet as his continued to look for anything on her face to give her away, and when he found nothing, he forced himself to sit up from the mattress and snatched the package of medicine from her hand. As he ripped the packaging open and popped the capsules into his mouth, he heard the sound of pouring water and afterward Amagi handed him a glass. He grabbed it and brought it to his lips, finishing the drink in a few long gulps before giving it back to her and promptly laying back down on the futon. His arm rested against his eyes so he wouldn't have to see her, but the memory of something she said to him earlier incited him to speak.

"You said that you would've hated yourself if you left me in the TV. Why?"

He peeked out from under his arm to see Amagi pensively looking down at him with the empty glass in her hand. "You saw my Shadow on the Midnight Channel, but did you see me at all?"

He shook his head in response. He only recalled seeing the real Amagi's silhouette prior to her actually being thrown into the TV. Afterward, her Shadow took over the spotlight until Amagi's friends rescued her.

His hostess went over to the table and placed the glass next to the pitcher of water. "So you never saw how scared I was. After I woke up, I didn't know where I was or how I got there. I tried to leave, but my Shadow kept me in the throne room. It was just us, and all she ever had to say were the things that I didn't want to admit were true."

Amagi then took the flashlight in her hands, and the movement made the light shine on a different part of the wall. "During the entire time I was there, I thought about the inn workers, my parents, Chie...and about how I never got to say good-bye to any of them. I had never felt so alone or afraid in my life."

It was obvious that the experience remained with Amagi after more than a year when it occurred. She looked back at him, and although the flashlight was directed away from both of them, he could see the traces of melancholy in her features. "I would never want anyone else to go through that."

He tried to find it, but there was nothing in her words or in her appearance that could help him convince himself that she was lying. Irritated by this loss, he turned away from her again. "I took the stupid pills."

She must have understood the unsaid meaning of his statement because Amagi didn't bother hanging around to say anything else. Sho heard her pick up the flashlight from the table on her way to the door. When she left, he followed the sound of her footsteps until they faded at the end of the hallway. Although the throbbing in his head had faded, the scent of antiseptic lingered in the room. Trying not to remember the hospital bed, his thoughts then strayed to Amagi. She had gotten him to take the medicine, and he may not have been able to prove she was lying, but at the very least, he was content in knowing that she was wrong.

He never got the chance to say good-bye to Ikutsuki either.

* * *

><p>She was relieved to find Sho asleep in his room when she stopped by to check on him in the morning before going to school. While she attended classes, she admittedly feared that a night of unbroken rest may have given him the energy to make another escape into the TV, but her unease over that possibility diminished as the day went on. A single night of decent rest wasn't the cure-all for missing meals.<p>

It was that line of thinking that led Yukiko to the produce aisle of Junes.

She examined the bunch of carrots with a discerning eye, checking for any blemishes that may have been on the skin or greens. "I could use these." She placed the carrots in a plastic bag and put them in the basket she carried in the hook of her arm. As she walked through the produce aisle, she tried to recall how the inn's cooks would prepare the dish she had in mind. "I think he used turnips, too." Yukiko scanned the fully-stocked stations for turnips, thinking that they couldn't be that far from the carrots. They were root vegetables, too, right? Or were they tubers?

_I think the bigger question is why I'm even thinking about doing this. _After so many months of training from the inn's chefs, Yukiko still couldn't cook anything worthy of serving to a guest. Each grimace from the head chef and each failed dish stung, although she managed to burn herself less with each lesson and she learned for the most part how to handle a knife properly. Then again, she doubted the decreased possibility of kitchen injuries would help with making dinner for the red-haired misanthrope currently lodging on the second floor. Yukiko could have asked the head chef to prepare the food for Sho, but the inn was hosting a large group of business people from the city tonight, and she didn't want to cause any unnecessary stress for the staff. Truthfully, she would barely have enough time to cook the meal herself, and acknowledging the time restraints only added to her fretfulness.

_What am I doing?_ She milled about the rows of vegetables, keeping watch for anything that resembled a turnip. Aside from her less-than-refined cooking skills, her first impression of meeting Sho on his first night at the inn stayed with her, including how he nonchalantly threatened to hurt the inn workers and how the combat knife reflected the light from the ceiling lamp as he threw it in the air. What he said during their fight a few days ago in the TV World was also hard to forget, especially about how he could have "saved" her from a uneventful existence in Inaba. But then she remembered how he almost collapsed to the ground yesterday, his hands clutching his head in pain, and how unnaturally passive he was when he finally agreed to go back to the inn.

That was right...Sho _did_ return with her, and he even took the medicine after refusing to do so last time. Aside from over-exhaustion and missed meals, something reassured her that Sho would be in his room when she returned with dinner.

"YUKI-CHAAAAAN!"

The high-pitched call cut through the hubbub of the busy store and her thoughts, and a familiar blonde boy wearing an orange apron ran through the crowded aisles towards her. His hand enthusiastically waved to her in greeting and it didn't stop until he was right in front of her. In a few more seconds, she knew she would see Yosuke-kun frantically running after his employee.

"Hello, Teddie." She greeted, finding his wide smile to be a welcomed sight. "How are you?"

"Beary, beary tired!" Teddie answered with a theatrically sad frown on his face that could tug the strings of even the stoniest heart. "Since he's been back from school, Yosuke has been making me work non-stop! I didn't even have time to finish reading my comics! He's the tyrant prince of Junes!"

Almost on cue, a hand clamped down on Teddie's blonde hair and forced him into a deep bow, revealing the aforementioned tyrant's irritable scowl. "Maybe if you were a dedicated worker, I wouldn't have to be so hard on you!"

Teddie's sky blue eyes were watery as he lifted his head up to confront his superior. "But I _have_ been a dedicated worker! I restocked the snack aisles and reorganized the mannequin display in the juniors' section-"

"You mean you _ate_ the inventory in the snack aisles and _messed up_ the mannequin display! You had them dressed in bikinis, AGAIN! It's fall! No one buys swimsuits this time of year, stupid!"

"You never appreciate art when you see it, Yosuke! You're not a cultured young man like Sensei! No wonder you can't score a date with a honey-"

"Shut it, bear!" A knock on the boy's head followed Yosuke's command, and then Teddie was allowed to stand upright again. He did so, but not without dramatically wiping the tears that had welled in his eyes.

As she watched their back-and-forth antics, Yukiko laughed. Chie wasn't around, but she never felt as alone like she had been in the past. It was hard to be when she was with Teddie and Yosuke-kun.

Her thoughts then went back to the red-haired boy at the inn. The only laughs she heard coming from Sho were the callous kind, but when she thought about it, she realized that he didn't have anyone to laugh with. Minazuki-kun was probably the only one he ever felt comfortable enough to relax around.

_He needs to get better so he could find him_. She looked back at the stacks of vegetables behind her, and when she couldn't find what she needed, she turned back to her classmate and his charge. "Yosuke-kun."

The Junes worker took a moment from reprimanding Teddie to listen to her. "What's up?"

"Do you know where the turnips are?"

* * *

><p>He woke to the sound of muffled footsteps coming from somewhere on the lower floor of the inn. His window was covered by a paneled screen, but his room was awash in a grey-blue gloom from the sunlight that stubbornly highlighted the corners of the frame. His body ached in complaint as he sat up from his futon, and his headache joined in on the protest. But what bothered him most of all was the memory of rooms with white walls and matching floors, filled with the overpowering smell of antiseptic and sanitizer.<p>

To clear his mind, he forced himself to move towards the table and he confirmed that his ears hadn't deceived him last night. Amagi did take the flashlight with her, although other items remained: a bowl of tangerines, a pitcher of water and an empty glass, and a book with a black hardbound cover.

Over the past week, the princess had proven that she was too nosy to simply leave him by himself, so he deduced that she read the book as a way to pass the time last night. The cover was etched with simple, white letters that spelled out _Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror: Volume I_. Spurred on by the disbelief over Amagi reading a book with such a grim title, he opened it and leafed through the pages, stopping at a black and white illustration of a man and a woman dressed in traditional clothing. The man was curling in fear on the snow-covered ground while the woman stood over him. Her head, covered with limp black hair, barely hung by thin threads of flesh and sinew from a neck that was so twisted it looked more like a gnarled tree trunk. He didn't have to think hard about what the ink that stained the woman's neck and kimono was supposed to be.

_She reads stuff like this?_ Even though he came across more grisly illustrations, he had difficulty imagining the prim and proper heiress poring over ghost stories. Remembering what her castle looked like after being thrown into the TV and the frilly, pink dress that her Shadow wore, he assumed Amagi favored the European-inspired fairytales, especially the ones that included saccharine, dimwitted princesses being rescued from impossibly tall towers by princes who were stupid enough to go after them. Yet in his hands was a volume of horror stories, which Amagi was reading under the scope of a flashlight in an otherwise dark room while he was asleep last evening.

Putting the book down, he picked up a tangerine from the bowl and peeled it. He cast away the rind and didn't bother breaking the fruit down by slice-he simply placed it into his mouth and ate it whole. He could taste a hint of citrus as he pondered the book on the table and the literary tastes of the girl who supposedly owned it.

Wondering if the stories were anything close to "frightening" and not wanting to return to his fever-induced dreams, he opened the book again and started with the first page.

* * *

><p>The rice porridge on the tray she carried was the result of her third try from the string of first-ever attempts today. She believed boiling rice would be simple, only to be proven wrong when her attention was required outside of the kitchen and she returned to find burnt rice and water spilling over the edge of the earthenware pot it cooked in. On her second attempt she cut the vegetables in uneven shapes and added a few "special" ingredients that the recipe didn't call for, but she believed would add to the texture. After she opened the lid, she found a blackened sludge that could have been used to patch the potholes in some of the town's streets.<p>

Her third attempt took the form of what she deemed as "passable". She didn't have any carrots or turnips left to use, but the porridge looked like it was supposed to. She would've tasted it herself, but she saw that the time she planned to deliver dinner had passed a couple of hours ago, so she raced upstairs with the meal. It was almost 9, and he was bound to notice that she was late with his meal.

Knowing that sitting there in front of the door wouldn't help, she called out to him from the other side. "Excuse me, but I'm coming in." Too worried about how hungry Sho may have been, she didn't wait for a reply and slid the door open. He was there, sitting next to the covered window with an open book on his lap.

As surprised as she was to not see him in bed, Yukiko didn't comment and brought in the tray with her. He didn't acknowledge her as she stood up and approached the table. "Sorry that dinner's late." She said as she set the tray down.

There was no sarcastic reply or biting remark. Sho just looked up from the book and to the clock. "Huh. Guess so."

She didn't know whether it was possible hunger, illness, or the book that was behind the subdued reaction, but Yukiko was relieved until he walked towards the table after putting the book aside on the floor. He opened the lid of the earthenware pot, releasing a cloud of steam. When he picked up the ladle and began spooning the porridge into the provided bowl, her fingers involuntarily gripped at the fabric of her kimono.

His face remained passive as he ate, and unlike her past experiences with watching other people eat her food, he didn't spit out the porridge. Instead, he took another bite without even the slightest trace of a grimace. He was about to take another spoonful, but he stopped.

When he didn't say anything, she blinked at him in confusion. "Is something wrong?"

He glared at her from over the bowl, and she feared a delayed negative reaction. "Why are you staring at me?"

Catching herself, Yukiko quickly looked away. She could still feel his eyes on her. "Oh, um, how does it taste?"

"Like rice porridge."

She didn't sense any praise in his statement, but there was nothing insulting about it either. Honestly, his statement was the closest thing to commendation she ever received on her cooking. "Oh, thank goodness!"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Your cook makes all those fancy meals. How could he mess up something as easy as rice porridge?"

Sho's cutting words dampened her enthusiasm, and she felt her previous anxiety creeping back. She nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the collar of her kimono suddenly stifling. "Actually, our cook didn't make it...I did."

The admission didn't garner a response, and when Yukiko looked back at Sho, he was staring at her with a strange expression. The spoon was still in his hand, hovering over the small bowl of porridge. Deciding a conversation, however one-sided, would be less awkward than continuous silence, she kept talking. "Whenever I was sick, our head chef would make rice porridge for me. It's easy to digest and it's warm, so I thought it may be good for you to eat. I could've asked our chef to make it for you, but the staff's really busy with a big group that arrived-"

"_You _cooked this?"

Yukiko was puzzled by the surprised tone of his voice and the equally surprised look on his face. "Yes. I know it's not the most extravagant dish, and I wanted to add something to liven up the texture, but I ended up using all of the carrots and turnips I bought." She realized she was rambling and in an attempt to regain her composure, Yukiko took a deep breath and spoke again. "Anyway, I know it's plain, and I'm nowhere near as skilled as our head chef. But I'm glad that it's at least edible."

His eyes held Yukiko's for a while, and then he returned to eating the rest of the porridge. After he was done, he mumbled something just loud enough for her to catch. "Your wrist."

"My wrist?" She repeated his words in confusion.

He sighed impatiently, and reproached her in a tone made weary by illness and exasperation. "Did I stutter? Yes, y_our wrist_. Is it banged up?"

She was perplexed by his question, but then she remembered when he struck her hand yesterday in the TV World. While she was startled by his action back then, the impact was light and left no marks or injuries. Yukiko had been too wrapped up with everything else to remember it until now. "It's fine. I'm sorry to worry you-"

"I'm _not_ worried. I was just wondering." He snapped irritably.

"Oh..." Her voice trailed off, trying to move to another topic of conversation. She considered asking about the book he was reading, but then Sho brought up a topic of his own.

"What do you know about Minazuki?"

This was the first time he had voluntarily mentioned his companion's name to her. The boy across the table was now looking attentively right at her. Noticing the absence of his usual glare and hearing the genuine curiosity in his tone, she hid her astonishment over the change in character as she answered, "He was another soul that shared the same body as you, and he helped put together both tournaments. I also know he could summon a Persona, although you couldn't at first."

He frowned at her last statement. "How do you know that?"

Yukiko hesitated, but she felt that giving a vague reply or not answering at all would have been wrong. It was natural for Sho to ask how she came across this information, and honestly, she felt guilty knowing so much about him without saying anything. "Yu-kun, Labrys, and Mitsuru-san. Some of us were separated from one another and had no idea what was going on, so they told us what they knew after the town went back to normal."

As difficult as it was, Yukiko forced herself to keep eye contact with the red-haired boy. If she wanted to be honest with him, she had to tell him everything else that she was aware of. "They also told us about a man named 'Ikutsuki'. He used you as a test subject, and Minazuki-kun was created from one of his experiments."

She couldn't predict how he would react to her knowing about such a personal detail from his past, but Yukiko didn't expect him to throw his head back and laugh. The sound of it was high and almost unhinged. "You _do _know about Ikutsuki! Tell me, Princess, did they tell you about what else he did? Like how he locked me up in a room every night when I wasn't beating the shit out of another subject?"

The knot in her chest from earlier tightened there again, only this time it was so taut it was almost painful as Sho went on. "Or how about when he left me to rot in a hospital after I went into a coma? Like I was garbage?"

The last time she was in a hospital was when Nanako-chan stayed there last year. It was heart-wrenching to see her almost lifeless form on the hospital bed with an oxygen mask pulled over her small face.

Sho sat back on his hands, looking smug. "I gotta say, it's a little unfair. You know so much stuff about me, and I didn't even tell you any of it." The corner of his mouth was turned up into a bitter grin, and the sight of it compelled Yukiko to speak.

"That's not true."

The grin disappeared at her words, and his piercing blue eyes glowered at her. "Of course it is! Your pathetic friends told you everything there is to know about me: I'm a weapon. That's all Minazuki and I ever were meant to be!"

"You're wrong, Sho-kun." Hearing herself say his name was odd to her ears. She felt slightly embarrassed, but she didn't want to leave this room without telling him everything she wanted to say. "There's still a lot I don't know about you. Like your favorite color or your favorite food, or what kind of books you read, and the music you listen to. Things like that."

"Why does any of that crap matter to you?" His voice was filled with scorn, but his eyes now regarded her in confusion.

She continued, feeling that it was important for Sho to hear the rest. "Because you're not a weapon-you're a _person_. If all you cared about was fighting, you wouldn't have tried so hard to find Minazuki-kun this whole time."

Again, he didn't confirm this. He only answered with a dismissive scoff and a caustic glare. "You don't know a damn thing about me."

He had said something similar to her a few days ago, albeit in an angrier voice. It was like no matter what she said, he was trying his best not to believe her. A week ago, the way he was acting would have driven her away. But now, she couldn't forget how he said Minazuki's name in his sleep, or the unbridled frustration in his eyes when she stopped him from venturing too far into the TV World.

And as soon as she thought of it, she couldn't forget the image of a red-haired boy lying in a hospital bed as days bled into years. "You can let me, you know."

His eyes widened and he looked too startled to respond. Yukiko was almost as surprised as him to hear herself speak those last words, but she knew in her heart that she meant them. As she thought of a way to persuade him, she remembered from their past interactions how bargains were the most familiar means of communication for Sho. "And you're right. It's not fair that I know a lot about your past, so how about this? You can ask whatever you want about me, and I'll do my best to answer."

Recovering from earlier, he replied to her proposal with a smile as sharp as his words. "I'm bored to tears, but that sounds like a waste of my time. What the hell would I want to know about _you_?"

Her arm extended across the table to take the empty bowl from him. As she placed it on the lacquer tray, she quipped, "I'm sure you can think of something. You're bored, right?"

Sho blinked at her in stunned silence, and a part of her wanted to stay longer to take delight in the fact that he actually had nothing to say. However, part of her manager's training was to never boast, and with that in mind Yukiko picked up the tray with the empty earthenware pot and bowl. She turned on her heel and departed, leaving him to his thoughts.

* * *

><p>Ever since their little talk, he had avoided speaking to her by feigning sleep whenever she entered his room with his meals. The only time they exchanged words was when Amagi insisted on doing some laundry for him the other day, and he was too tempted by a shower and a change of clothes to refuse her. He didn't bother with the yukata she laid out for him though, opting for an extra pair of his own clothes he kept stashed in his duffel bag. The long sleeves of his black shirt were more suited for the chillier fall nights, and it was nice to lounge in a clean pair of jeans. During the time he assumed that she was at school, he would spend his hours reading Amagi's book. The plotting of many of them were slow, but the vivid descriptions and the grotesque drawings kept his interest long enough for him to finish most of the book.<p>

When he wasn't thumbing through the pages, there were moments when he would just lay in his futon or sit near the window for a change of scenery, thinking of explanations for all of Amagi's actions to this point. Her friends were no longer a valid reason because they both knew that he was committed to a more important task than taking out those weaklings. He then tried to convince himself that her status as a manager-in-training drove her to pester him, but even that theory was flimsy. She could have arranged to have Sho moved to a nearby hospital, giving her the chance to wash her hands and her conscience of him. He also doubted that Amagi's family trained their employees to provide first aid to guests who threatened to hurt their friends and families.

Last year when he saw her, his impression of Yukiko Amagi was an uptight, frail girl who was too weak to fight her own way out of her Shadow's clutches. Later when he saw Narukami and his allies fighting Shadows in the TV World, he noticed how the girl always stayed in the back while her friends took up the frontlines. Sure, her Persona had exceptional skill with fire attacks and Amagi herself had decent aim with the paper fans she preferred to use, but she always needed distance to pull off anything. When he goaded her into fighting him, he wouldn't think that she would last very long in a real battle. He couldn't summon Tsukiyomi anymore, relying on his swords and his speed to edge out the girl, and that also proved to be a mistake. The sleeves and collar of the green button-down shirt were still marred with soot as reminders, even after Amagi cleaned them.

Adding insult to injury, she forced him back to her family's inn _twice_. The first time she relied on her Persona, and the second time he blamed being sick as the sole reason for giving into her stubbornness. Nevertheless, whatever method she had used, she managed to get him back here. Amagi had succeeded where Narukami couldn't, and he was going half-mad trying to find out how she did it.

When he first arrived at the inn, he could've believed that the reason for Amagi's actions was because she was afraid of him, but no matter how much he wanted to now, he knew that wasn't true. If she truly feared him, Amagi wouldn't have chased after him into the TV World a couple days ago. She wouldn't have annoyed him this past week with medicine or cooked a homemade meal for him.

If she truly feared him, she wouldn't want to know what his favorite color was.

His ears picked up the familiar sound of her footsteps coming into the hallway. He thought about quickly going to his futon to fake sleeping under the covers again, but he hesitated. Avoiding her the past two days proved tiresome, and he took some amusement from the rare moments when he was able to get her to lose face.

He was never as good at reading people as Minazuki was. He had been wrong about his father, about Narukami, and even about that Adachi bastard. If he had been off the mark with his assumptions of Amagi up to now, what else had he gotten wrong about her?

She was only a door away from his room, and his last second to make a dash to the futon was gone. As he sat near the window with her book next to him and his back to the door, Sho decided that he wasn't going to avoid her any longer. He wanted to know how long she could keep playing the goody two shoes and when she slips up, he was going to be there to laugh at her.

For however long he ended up staying here, there would be no better way to pass the time.

The door glided on its railings and Amagi said a greeting as she stepped in. He looked over his shoulder at her, and sure enough, she was carrying dinner. He ignored her surprised expression from seeing him awake as he went over to the table. After a short while, she met him there and set the tray in front of him.

"You left this." He saved her the trouble of asking what he meant by placing the hardbound book on the cover.

Her eyes widened in recognition at the sight of it. "I was wondering where I put that!" She didn't seem annoyed in the slightest that Sho had it in his room.

"This is really yours?" He asked, still not believing that she could own such a macabre book.

"Yes." Amagi simply answered, not picking up the hint of skepticism. Her face had an almost expectant look to it when she then asked, "Did you read any of it?"

He nodded while lifting the lid from the earthenware pot she brought him. Oddly enough, the rice porridge he uncovered was peppered with several pickled plums. "Yeah. Hey, why are there so many of these in here?"

As if she didn't hear his question, Amagi immediately moved closer and slightly leaned over the table. Her eyes were bright, and her face lit up with the smile on her lips. "What did you think of it?"

Caught off guard by the anticipation in her voice, it took a moment for Sho to assess that he was actually talking to Amagi. "Eh, most of it was boring because it took forever for anything good to happen. The pictures were more interesting." He recalled one particular illustration with a grin. "There was this one picture with a lady whose head was barely hanging onto her neck, and she was all covered in blood and stuff!"

"I remember that one!" She exclaimed in an excited tone that again made him wonder if it really was Amagi sitting across from him and not her doppelganger. "I think the artist did a wonderful job of balancing the grotesque atmosphere with the theme of emotional despair that the writer was going for! The story felt more complete with the illustration!"

Her commentary was far too descriptive and enthusiastic for her interest in horror stories to be casual. "How many of these books do you own?"

Amagi's brow furrowed slightly as she tried to recall the number in her head. "I think I have 20 of them? No wait, maybe 30? Oh, and I'm not counting the ones that we had to put in storage because I needed more room for the new books I bought." She looked up back at him with another smile that was not at all representative of the subject matter at hand. "Did you want to borrow another? I can find something a little faster-paced."

He pushed the book towards her, not knowing whether to laugh or interrogate the girl in front of him for the whereabouts of the real Yukiko Amagi. "I'm tired of reading."

"Really?" Her face became downcast, but only for a second. As soon as her expression perked up, he knew she had another idea. "You might enjoy the movies more! I have the one based on the story you mentioned."

The idea of Amagi watching horror was somehow more absurd than imagining her reading it. "You're kidding me."

"I really do!" She insisted and was about to say more, but stopped herself when she looked over at the TV. "But you don't have a DVD player in this room..."

Disappointed by her own observation, the girl fell into a silence that contrasted to her previous impassioned rambling, and an idea hit him right then. "My laptop can play movies."

"Oh, good!" She glanced at the clock on the wall to check the time. "I'll bring it over after the dinner rush."

"You're watching it with me."

Amagi's motions abruptly stopped at his demand, her back rigidly straight as she gawked at him. "W-what?"

Too restless to go to bed early and too intrigued by the image of a gleeful Amagi watching a scary movie in a dark room, he refused to let the subject die. "You're watching it with me. Unless you're too _scared_."

Even though she said nothing, her eyes answered with a defiant look before she stood up from the floor and left.

* * *

><p>After a couple more hours, Amagi returned with the film to his room like she said. Shortly before her arrival, he had set up his laptop on the table, the utility cord trailing from the outlet across the floor. At his insistence the lights were turned off, and for whatever reason, Amagi's face was red during the brief time they waited for the movie to play. It didn't regain its normal color until after the opening credits.<p>

For the next hour and a half, Sho's attention was mainly on Amagi, although he stole short glimpses of the movie itself. The movie started out almost as slowly as the book, but fleeting glimpses of the nearly decapitated ghost haunting twisting hallways and dark rooms were fun to watch. But at every jump scare and high-pitched scream that followed, he made it a point to look over at the girl, who was so engrossed with the misfortune of the ghost's victims that she was oblivious to anything else around her. Sho could have shaken her or yelled, and he still wouldn't have been able to pry her away from the movie.

And he wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it himself, but Amagi was _smiling_ through most of it.

When the final scene finally played out and the actors' names began to scroll up his laptop screen, Amagi broke out of her trance and looked expectantly at him. "What did you think?"

The hopeful tone in her voice and the eager look in her eyes were so bizarre that he couldn't have stopped the laughter that erupted from his lips if he tried.

"What's so funny?" The clueless look on her face only made him laugh harder, the motion wracking his chest almost painfully.

"This is all wrong!" He spoke through shallow breaths. "The heiress loves _hair-_raising tales!" Lightheadedness overtook him, and he had to grip the edge of the table for support. "I can't believe you- you of all people-love watching this stuff! And you were smiling! It's so wrong, it hurts!"

When he finally broke out of his fit, his chest ached and he was still dizzy. He glanced at Amagi to find her looking thoughtfully back at him. "I've never heard you laugh like that."

Taking what she said as a backhanded slight, he was about to fire back until she said, "It's a nice sound."

For the first time, she was smiling at him...and a peculiar warmth, unrelated to his illness or the temperature in the room, spread throughout his chest. Unsure of what to make from the strange sensation, he quickly tore his eyes away from her and ejected the movie from his laptop. "Tch, figures. You like weird stuff and you say weird stuff." He muttered as he forced the DVD back into its case and shoved it towards her.

"Do I?" Amagi asked, taking the DVD. "Well, I always end up watching these movies by myself because my friends don't really like them. It's fun watching them with someone else, so thank you, Sho-kun." As tempted as he was, he didn't accuse her of lying because she sounded so remarkably candid, which only made him more eager for her to leave.

"I have more movies, so let me know if you ever get bored. I can lend them to you."

Growing more agitated by the increasing level of discomfort he attributed to Amagi, Sho abruptly closed his laptop. "I'll tell you if I want them."

Disappointment flickered across Amagi's face, but she nodded and stood up from the table. As she was about to turn away, he stopped her. "And maybe if I'm bored enough, I'll let you watch with me."

Until today, he didn't have an interest in movies, horror or otherwise, but seeing Amagi's reactions to them was hilarious and the only form of entertainment he has experienced at the inn so far. If she was going out of her way to bring his meals and nag him to take medicine, the least she could do is make him laugh.

"I'd like that." Amagi broke into another smile, and he averted his eyes away from it as he began to put his laptop away. He didn't lift his head again until she slid the door behind her.

Later that night, sleep didn't come easily to Sho. He wasn't sure how much of the blame could be attributed to his illness or the memory of Amagi's smile.

* * *

><p><strong>Writer's Note:<strong> Happy (late) New Year, everyone! Hope it's off to a good start for you. I especially had fun writing this chapter, and it helped me forget the subzero temperatures (until I had to go outside). One of my resolutions is finishing this story, so I hope you keep continuing to read as it comes along. I may even start on another Sho x Yukiko AU story that I've been thinking for a while now, but we'll see.

As always, please let me know what you think. Thank you again for the followings and the support!


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